The Father's Shadow
by fox of sweet and awesome powers
Summary: What if Naruto's parents survived the Kyuubi? How would Naruto turn out? Would he still be that cheerful knucklehead or would he be a more serious ninja? AU Hiatus, potential revision.
1. Prologue

He was an elite fighter in every sense of the word. He had surpassed all of the leaders of his village before him and probably the leaders of every other village as well. His teacher was one of the legendary sannin, Jiraiya, whom he had surpassed in strength long ago. He had even beaten the teammate of his teacher without getting touched, a feat his teacher had failed, just for insulting his master and friend. He was the Hokage, leader of the strongest country in the known world.

He was going to be a father. This thought had consumed his mind for eight and a half long and yet short months. He and his wife were very happy.

His village was under attack. It was the Kyuubi who was on the rampage now. The strongest demon on this plane. It was up to him to save his village from complete obliteration.

He was young and foolish even if he was a genius.

He was in a specially prepared room, he had designed it himself. He had designed it for the sole purpose of sealing the demon outside his village. He was finishing the preparations needed to allow his child to live through the sealing process.

This was where Sarutobi found his young protégé: scrambling around this small space.

"Are you sure there is no other way to go about this?" Sarutobi asked, knowing full well the answer.

"Yes, and don't try to wiggle me out of doing it, Sarutobi-san," the young blonde said as he was flying about finishing seals.

"I won't," the old man said tiredly. "But I am not ready to come back out of retirement." With that one statement and the decision that followed it, he changed the course of the future. He had quietly snuck closer to the young man. And as soon as Minato was done with the seals and had turned to go and face Kyuubi, Sarutobi chopped Minato on his neck, knocking him out and leveling the young man.

"I'm sorry, my young man, but this is not your time to die," the old man said looking back on the unconscious man who he still considered a child. He sighed as he moved out of the room heading out to the edge of the village. Where he would make his last stand, the last fight of an old man who was no longer in office, a man who still loved his country, a man who would die in a matter of hours.

He had read the books the Yondaime had written as he had planned his defense from the Kyuubi. He understood the process and everything involved in the process. He only had to rip the demon's spirit from his body and hold it until Kushina gave birth to the hero of Konoha, Naruto Uzumaki, then seal the vile being into the poor child.

Simple enough considering his age: sixty-five.

Minato woke up to the sound of a crying baby. He woke-up confused. Why was he waking up at all? Wasn't death supposed to be a sudden awareness not a waking moment? Then it hit him. All of it at once made sense. Sarutobi had knocked him out and done the sealing himself, the crying was Naruto, he would be alive to be the father he had wanted to be these whole nine months.

He launched himself to his feet only by his arms, he then bolted across the room to get his crying babe. He lifted his son and coddled him, shushing his cries. His son slowly stopped crying and slept in his father's arms, arms that wouldn't have been there to hold him if it had gone according to the original plan.

Yondaime was glad that it had not had not gone as he planned.


	2. Death of a Loved One

Yondaime sat at his desk staring at the pictures on his wall. More specifically he was staring at the picture of the Third, staring at the man who sacrificed his life so Minato could live with his family, a man who died not even two years past.

A bundle in the chair next to him started to stir. Minato turned to see if his child was truly waking or just moving in his sleep, Naruto was just rolling over, still asleep. Since he had finished all of his paperwork, Minato picked his son up and cuddled with him on his chair, leaning back and staring at his son's bright face, the face that always made him smile, just like his mother's.

She always had amazing timing, he thought. As the thought entered his head comparing his wife to his son, his wife hobbled in. She had developed a calcium deficiency while pregnant with Naruto, which weakened her ankles especially. She could not balance well and the bracers only annoyed her so she never wore them, despite Minato's best attempts.

She strode up to her husband's desk and sat on the front of it watching her husband as he stared at their child. She had successfully snuck up on him for the first time in a month, and as such he had not raised his eyes to her face. She sat there watching him hold Naruto as Naruto slept. It took him several minutes before he looked up at her, suddenly surprised.

"H-How long have you been there, Kushina-tan?" Minato said in a happy but shocked tone.

"Long enough to see you staring at our son like a beautiful piece of art," she said tilting her head and smiling.

He silently patted the seat that Naruto had been in. She smiled and moved shakily over to the chair, sat down then held her arms out for her son. Minato relented and handed him over to his mother, who coddled the child and kissed his head. Minato moved to stand behind his wife, draped his arms over her shoulders and kissed her head, looking at his son in her arms.

"He's looks just like you, sweetheart," Kushina whispered as her son's blue eyes blinked open.

"Heya, kiddo," Minato said as he reached down and petted his son's wild blonde hair that was so much like his own it frightened him. 'Another blonde urchin-head,' he would always joke with his wife, who would promptly hit her husband on the head, even though she knew she could no longer hit hard enough to hurt him, saying something to the effect of 'he is not an urchin-head and nor are you, you both are too smart, I think it's something to do with being struck by genius… or maybe lightning.'

"Hi, dada," Naruto mumbled sleepily and hugged his mom. "Momma's cohmfy," he drawled sleepily.

Minato and Kushina shared a quiet laugh, trying not to wake their son. They sat in the office and watched as their Naruto slept.

Naruto woke up after about thirty minutes of snuggling with Kushina. At which point Kushina took him out for lunch and to go home to play around the house. Minato tried to finish his work quickly, so he could get home and spend more time with his beloved family.

"Sensei!" Kakashi yelled into Minato's ear.

Minato jerked his head off his desk in response. He apparently had fallen asleep, something which he hated doing on the job as he required either the loudest alarm clock or a sharp yell next to his head to wake.

"Report?" Minato said as he shuffled his papers around hastily trying to act busy.

"Well, I just returned from that reconnaissance mission you last sent me on, I gathered all the requisite information… but I also uncovered a plot on the life of someone close to you. I am sorry, I… the info I was given about the meeting was off, I arrived… too late to hear whom, but I heard 'death to that Namikaze' then they started playing cards for the rest of the night. I am sorry, Sensei."

Minato remained silent.

"When did you hear of this?" Minato spoke as he turned to look out his window, giving Kakashi his back.

"Three days ago, as soon as they left I hurried here as fast as I could," Kakashi said as he stared at his sensei worriedly.

Minato half turned to his student, staring at the carpet of his office.

"Station a few more ANBU around my home, and keep a squad on my son at all times," he then turned back to the window. "Leave the report on my desk, you are dismissed."

Kakashi quietly left the report on the large oak desk and then turned on his heel to walk out.

"Thank you," he heard from his teacher as he reached for the handle.

"Anything for you," he grasped the handle and hurried out. He wanted to get this command issued as quick as possible, which would give him more time to request to be on the squad's watching over the Namikaze.

Minato stared out at the village, wishing he could have a better view of his house from it. As it was he could only see the southeast corner of it, a training ground and several of the taller buildings in Konoha obscured his view. He silently prayed that they would try to kill him, not his family. He could dispatch any who opposed him. His family could not do the same.

He turned to his desk and started writing on a scroll. Once he finished he summoned a runner frog, handed him the scroll and said one word, a name, and with that the frog hopped away at high speed, searching for the target. Minato hoped he was close by.

Several weeks later: Minato had by now told his wife about the assassination plot, which caused her to start wearing her ankle bracers more often. She in fact wore them daily, and had taken to dusting off her own skills in preparation. Although, she still was hardly a match for a mid-level jonin as her mobility was highly limited. After several months she was beginning to let her guard down, as a ninja who was only used to executing the missions, she was uninformed on how far an attack could, and often was, planned in advance.

Minato, however, knew an attack could be planned years in advance and was not letting his guard down at all. He had skipped several days at the office to spend them training himself into the ground, which took all day and then some, to be ready for an attack. He knew he was powerful, but he also knew there were several people in the world who could challenge if not beat him. Another thing that bothered him was that he did not know the price of his betters nor did he know the depth of the pockets after him.

The weeks went by, incredibly slow and agonizing for some, like Minato and Kushina who did their best to hide their nervousness around Naruto, but for some it went by quickly, Naruto was having a blast training with his mother, he loved the sword he was given, and he loved spending half his day at Minato's desk, in all Naruto could never guess that he was under protection. He thought it was just extra and random fun with his parents.

He thought that, right until the day that _he_ had been the first to spot an assassin. He mentioned a mean looking man in the bushes to his mom who immediately radioed her Minato about it. He said he would alert the ANBU outside. The ANBU stated the man was under their surveillance, and while the ANBU were still in radio communication with the Hokage, he heard the loud snapping of bones. Startled and now very scared, Minato stormed out of his office and ran along the fastest route he knew to his home, and it was the very fastest and most direct route there.

'Please, Kushina, hold on, Naruto, use that amazing hiding ability well now,' Minato thought as he flew over roof tops and through parks.

It seemed like eternity, but he knew it was nowhere near it. He seemed to move too slowly, yet he knew he was going faster than anyone could match. He wished he had given Kushina one of his special kunai, but he knew she would never throw the darn thing. He knew he was most likely going to be too late, but the hope his love dictated helped him crush that thought down.

He still prayed he was not too late.

Naruto could do nothing but watch as his mother dove and pulled him out of his chair. He heard the sound of something hitting and sinking deep into wood, something hard, and that something was right on the dining table.

Kushina said only one word to him, "Hide!" as they fell to the ground. Naruto did not question his mother and sprinted away. Kushina watched her son disappear around the corner, and then jumped up and hobbled quickly to her sword.

The assassin was suddenly crouched in the window sill as Kushina got to her weapon and drew her blade, tossing her sheath aside. The man eyed her warily, he knew her reputation, but few knew that her pregnancy with Naruto had weakened her. The darkly dressed man drew his own blade.

Naruto was upstairs moving quickly and quietly. He was in a secret place designed especially for him to hide in. It was connected to just about every part of the house with tunnels and corridors. He sat in frightened silence. He was scared for his mother, he was scared for himself. It was in this silence that he heard the sounds of metal clanging against metal. He whimpered and curled up in his corner, praying that his mom was alright.

Kushina was holding her ground, for now. Her ankles already hurt and she had done no more than rotate to keep facing this man. He was still just testing her strengths. As he circled her he was eyeing her movements: searching for a weak spot. She knew what that weakness was, it was only a matter of time before he knew. He rushed her, forcing her to step back, it was then she realized that he knew what her weakness was, and he was exploiting it. She gave ground, the pain throbbing through her legs making her lose her footing. As she fell she saw the man thrust his blade at her heart, and she heard something, a blade sinking into wood several feet behind her.

Minato was less than thirty seconds from his home when the sounds of thrashing metal reached his ears. He heard this and could think of only one thing: he's there fighting Kushina. He heard her scream as he got a hundred feet from his home, another five seconds. Then he felt the familiar pull of one of his kunai. He dove into it, without hesitation.

The assassin was blinded and staggered back, but he left his blade in Kushina's heart. He looked up to see that single man, that blonde cause of all dread, staring at him, pure hate rolling off of him. But he noticed one thing was off, there was no killing intent. This made the man much more nervous. The man drew a pair of kunai.

Minato was shocked at the sight of his wife with a sword in her chest, that heart which she gave to him this man took. Naruto was atop the stairs, and Naruto simply cried two words, "Help mommy…" then he collapsed and curled back up in fear. Minato zeroed in on the man who took his one and only love, and the man who had threatened the life of his child. Only one thought kept in his mind while he stared this man, no, bastard into a personal abyss, pain. Lots and lots of pain.

The man drew a kunai and Minato took several slow steps forward slipping his own out of his sleeve. One exchange of blades, the man tried twin thrusts only to have both blades blocked, and his left hand and wrist fall off. Pure panic was on his face now, Minato lunged forward, blocking the man's wild slash and slicing the assassin's arm in two. The man's arms were useless now, his left missing a hand and part of the wrist and his right split in two from the palm to half way into his shoulder.

Minato threw his kunai deep into the man's leg. As the man was wincing in pain Minato crushed his face with an uppercut, sending the man over the table and onto his back, unconscious. Minato grabbed the sword and carefully lifted it out of Kushina's chest tossing it at the assassin. Carefully, oh so carefully, he lifted up his dearest wife. He called on his radio for ANBU to pick up the man and to take him to Interrogations. After they had taken him away, Minato called to Naruto, saying it was safe now. Naruto sprinted down the stairs and latched onto his father. Minato hugged him firmly, then Naruto saw his mother.

"Mommy…" Naruto whimpered slowly moving from his father to his mom. He shook her, trying to wake her up.

"Wake up," he cried weakly.

"naruto…" Minato whimpered as he pulled his son into his arms.

"Daddy, tell mom to wake up, please Daddy," Naruto said as he crushed himself into his dad, crying.

"I can't, Naruto, I can't. She won't wake up," Minato said as he started crying with his son, holding him firmly.

"Why not, daddy?" Naruto barely squealed, his sobs hindering everything he was attempting to do.

Minato burst into tears, he could not tell his son. Weeping, he held his son, he crushed his one and only son in a hug, and Naruto cried back and pulled himself to his father. They stayed that way until they both slept, and they slept quietly but sadly.

Minato sat in the middle of the front row with his son, both boys were dressed in all black. It was Kushina's funeral. It was the day that both of them would wear black, from this day until the end of their lives. They sat and they stared. They sat not listening to the sermon, they only stared at the one woman who meant the world to both of them; the one woman who one week prior died before their widened eyes.

Naruto reached out and grabbed his father's hand. Minato squeezed his son's hand and smiled weakly at him, trying to be reassuring. To anyone who was even a little older than his son, it was a weak display, but to his young child, he was the sun itself. Naruto leaned on his father's arm and settled down a little.

They walked up and lay their flowers on her grave, then they walked to the back of the crowd. There, Minato leaned on a tree and picked Naruto up into his arms. They sat there for a while, and watched. They watched as everyone, walked up sullenly, laid their offering down and returned to their general spot.

This continued for about twenty minutes, many knew she had died, but few knew she died fighting, and even fewer knew she died protecting Naruto from an assassin.

Minato and Naruto watched in a sad knowing, the rest looked on in almost complete ignorance as she was burned on her pyre. After the pile was half burned, people started to leave and within five minutes only Minato, Naruto, Jiraiya and Kakashi were left.

Minato and Naruto remained until well after the embers were cold. They stayed there for a day. They stared for a day. The left at sun up, they went home and slept. They slept on the couch, Naruto curled up in Minato's arms.


	3. Bittersweet Dreams

It took several months for things in the Namikaze house to return to something akin to normal in fact it took the majority of the year. Minato had had vicious nightmares in the early months, as did Naruto though Minato's were inadequacy dreams but Naruto's were nightmares of loss: the loss of his family, his father and his mother.

Minato woke from a dream about his wife, he remembered no details other than that it was not a nightmare but slightly pleasant in nature. He sat up in bed and looked around. It was still dark outside, he could not know exactly what time as he did not keep an alarm clock anymore. He sat and stared at his wall for several minutes. He sat and thought, he thought only of his wife. He missed her greatly, but he could not let his life end with hers: he had a son. His two year-old son would need looking after and with how many enemies he had made during the wars he didn't trust anyone else was both willing and capable of doing the job. Kakashi was willing but the village needed his help too much for him to be around enough to guard Naruto. As well, Naruto simply could not take both of his parents dying so close together.

Then there was the village. There was no one he could name as his successor yet nor would his suicide look good for the whole of Konoha. And the village loved him to pieces and wanted him as their leader. He was stuck not being with his precious Kushina. At least he still had Naruto, who was very much like his mother. That would help him: he still had one tie to Kushina.

One of those things was that ironic timing, some innate skill or unconscious sense that allowed them both to show up as soon as they were thought about or spoken about.

"Daddy…" Naruto sleepily drawled as he stood in the doorway. He rubbed his eye as if to punctuate his fatigue.

"Nar-cough-Naruto?" Minato had to find his voice. He had been crying in his sleep if his burning cheeks and lack of voice were any indication.

"I can't sleep…" Naruto said shifting his weight forward.

"Well," Minato said as he stood and started walking towards his son, "Do you need someone to sleep with?"

Naruto nodded and reached his little arms out for his father. Minato smiled at his son and picked him up then walked to the bed and set him in it. He tucked Naruto in and then laid down himself. As soon as he was settled, Naruto latched onto him and fell asleep. Minato smiled at his son and then he lay down his head and closed his eyes to sleep himself. He slept soundly with a single thought: his son would be safe with him. He would make certain of that.

Naruto woke the next morning to the smell of something cooking. He walked that cumbersome and uncoordinated walk of a child: never quite knowing how far his feet are from the floor. When he rounded the corner to the kitchen he saw Minato standing at the stove cooking sausage.

"Food's on the table son," Minato said as he looked and smiled at his son.

"What food?" Naruto asked as he glared at the stove for he never did like sausage or bacon.

"Well, in your spot is an omelet with cheese, grape jellied toast and a bowl of that cinnamon cereal you like," Minato said as he finished his sausage and tossed it onto his plate.

Upon hearing this, Naruto ran to and jumped into his seat to search for some sort of silverware. He pouted and looked at his father who was chuckling and holding out a spoon and a fork to him. Naruto gladly took them and said his thanks to his father then turned in his chair and started eating. He never ate slowly, it was as if the food could disappear at any moment and he had to eat it quickly.

Minato always said he was the same way when he was young, but that as he grew older he slowed in his eating, he learned to savor it. He told Naruto that it happened gradually but in reality it happened after his first mission that involved him killing a human. He learned very quickly that his life could be forfeit at any given moment, and this caused him to slow down in the little things that he took for granted: eating, chatting with his friends and teacher and the things he had assumed would always be there.

They finished their breakfast with some jokes passed about and only one sausage thrown across the small table. It had taken four months for them to reach this point, the point at which a little thing called happiness could seep back into their minds. But now at the end of the seventh month since Kushina's death, they could joke openly and not feel so much pain at their humor. They both were haunted by nightmares from time-to-time but they had learned to accept it.

Minato went to his office with his son at his side, or more accurately clinging to his cloak for warmth. Although, snow was rare in Konoha it did get cool in the winter, at least cool for residents. It got down to forty degrees Fahrenheit and it got that low quickly: one day sixty or seventy, the next forty, so Naruto was not dressed appropriately for the weather as one would guess from a child's inexperience and he was clinging to the underside of his father's cloak. Minato chuckled as he watched his son, he remembered something similar happening to him as a child.

When they arrived at Minato's office, Naruto ran to a chair and struggled to pull it over the heating vent. Before Naruto had moved it ten inches, Minato scooped him up into the chair and carried it over the vent. Naruto draped his feet over into the hot air while Minato watched him for a minute, and chuckling, he turned to his desk and started in on his paperwork. After a few minutes, he engaged a jutsu he created: it sped up his neural synapses to match the speed of his reflexes, which enabled him to read at an unbelievable rate and understand it like he had spent hours mulling over every word. With this jutsu he could finish his daily workload in an hour but if he went that fast his mind would feel like mush for a day, so he usually kept it down to a much more manageable three to four hour time frame.

Naruto always watched his father as he engaged that weird jutsu of his. He was entranced as his father's arms became white blurs and the whole of his eyes turned to a lighter shade of blue. He sat and stared at his father's movements for about an hour then he would try to reach the speed his father would, of course he never could get close but he always got fast enough to make himself plenty disoriented. After he regained his bearings he would imitate his father's workout for two hours. All Naruto ever attempted were sit-ups and push-ups. But, from time-to-time, he would also attempt any fighting stances and attacks he had seen his father do. Most of the time he would end up falling backwards onto his rump or onto his stomach, and after a few falls he would go back to trying push-ups and sit-ups.

Minato finished his work and watched as his son attempted sit-ups. His son would be a hard worker for life if he kept this up. Minato only wondered at how high his limit was and what his son would achieve. Then a thought entered his over amped brain: could he start a Hokage dynasty? If his son made it, then that would be a first that a father was succeeded by his son for Hokage. He smiled at the thought. He never was one for power, but he loved being a first or a record. So far he was the youngest and most powerful Hokage ever put into office, and now he wanted to be the first Hokage dynasty. As Jiraiya called him, he was one ambitious kid.

Naruto finally felt his father's eyes upon him and he looked up at Minato from his back. Minato tried to stifle a laugh, but he was unsuccessful and after a second attempt he burst out laughing. His son was looking up at him from his back with his legs paused in the air mid-kicks to lift his body off the ground in a sit-up. Naruto just looked at his father confused, which only aided in the hilarity for Minato, who was now crying from laughter.

Naruto rolled over and watched as his father laughed himself out of his chair. Then Minato stood bolt upright with a smile splitting his face.

"Son, a certain someone just got into town. Let's go play with him," Minato said as he walked over to his son and took his hand.

They walked quickly, as quickly as Naruto could manage, to a spot in a wooded part of Konoha. The place was not anywhere close to the gate, nor did it lead to anything from the gate. But Minato knew he was not waiting for anyone who would use the gate.

Naruto, meanwhile, was running from bush to bush looking for someone, so he was taken completely aback when he saw a large man dressed in mostly red with long white hair and a plate of metal with horns on his forehead. The man looked surprised when he saw the two blonde's watching him, one smiling broadly the other paused in mild confusion. Then the confused blonde had the epiphany he needed.

"UNCLE JIRAIYA!" the little Naruto yelled at the top of his lungs and sprinted to launch himself at the man's knees.

Jiraiya smiled and bent down to pick up the small blonde at his knees.

"Hey, kiddo, how have you been?" Jiraiya smiled at the child in his hands.

"I'm okay," Naruto said with a frown. "I can't do hardly any of daddy's workout…"

"What has he been trying?" Jiraiya said as he looked at his former student.

"The better question would be: 'what has he not tried'," Minato said as he sighed and looked at his son's bright face. "He's tried anything I do in front of him, push-ups, sit-ups and a few of my fighting techniques."

"What?!?" Jiraiya said in mock shock. Then he looked at Naruto, "You haven't tried any jutsus yet Naruto?"

Naruto looked at him confusedly and shook his little head slowly.

"Minato, I'm disappointed in you," Jiraiya said in such a way that Minato knew he was joking but Naruto did not.

"Daddy, why is Uncle, mad at you?" Naruto said as he looked at his father in his cutest puzzled expression.

Minato sighed and ruffled his son's hair, "He's just joking: he thinks I should be training you by now." _Even if my son is only a month older than three._

Jiraiya laughed and put Naruto on his feet and held his hands and walked with Naruto's standing atop his bare feet.

"It's never too early!" Jiraiya said as he passed Minato.

"I'm pretty sure you said that about something else," Minato said as he turned and walked after Jiraiya. "But if you try to teach _those_ to my son…" he purposefully trailed off.

"You wouldn't hurt your own sweet teacher now would you?" Jiraiya said looking over his shoulder at his former student. The blood-curdling look he received was all he needed. Jiraiya actually started to sweat nervously.

"Hey, who wants ramen? My treat!" Jiraiya said trying to quickly change the subject, anything to get his pupil off his back.

Naruto raised his hand and shouted, "I do!" which effectively broke the tension between master and pupil. They already knew where they were going, it was only a question of how they wanted to get there.


	4. A Race for Happiness

Minato, Naruto, and the old pervert named Jiraiya sat, stood and leaned at the bar in Ichiraku's ramen bar. Minato sat on his stool, Naruto had to stand on his to reach his food and Jiraiya leaned his elbow on the counter and watched his favorite blonde guys. Naruto, after he finished his miso ramen, had taken to spinning in his stool, while Minato and Jiraiya simply caught up on the adventures that Jiraiya had had while he was out doing whatever it was he did while he was out.

"You mean to tell me that a giant spider tried to eat you?" Minato said while he stared incredulously at his teacher.

"I told you, the guy summoned that spider upon seeing me and ran," Jiraiya pleaded trying to convince Minato.

"But I've never heard of a spider summon, let alone a spider that can possibly contend with Gamabunta," Minato said turning his head further to the side.

"Fine, don't believe me, but the next time you're in Grass and some weird nin summons a spider on you, I'll try to not say I told you so," he said and crossed his arms.

"Well, I'll keep my eye out. And have you heard anything about _them_ recently?" Minato said as he turned his gaze gently onto his son, who looked at him then smiled and then spun again.

"No, I haven't, which has me uneasy about them. Another thing that worries me is that Orochimaru has left them, which spells an uncertain and possibly dark future for Konoha," Jiraiya said as he stared outside the bar's curtains.

"I can handle Orochimaru, my only concern is his main target for revenge would be Sarutobi-dono, but since he died three years ago: who might be his target now?" Minato said as he stopped Naruto's chair.

"Let's go to the park, Naruto-chan," when Minato said this his son made a face showing his displeasure at being called chan.

Jiraiya tried to walk out first, only to be interrupted by Minato's coughs and finger pointing to the waiting Ichiraku. Laughing nervously, Jiraiya paid and walked out after the blondes.

They ended up in a small park near the center of Konoha, Naruto was playing around in the dirt, Jiraiya sat on a bench and Minato leaned on the back of the same bench. They were simply smiling and watching the child draw in the loose topsoil.

Minato walked around the bench and kneeled in front of Naruto.

"Hey, son, do you remember that odd energy you called out the other week?" Minato asked smirking softly. Naruto nodded vigorously in response, his own smile splitting his face.

"Well, I'd like you to try something, call up that energy if you can and do these signs with your hands and try to gather the energy into your hands while you do so," Minato did four hands signs slowly as he spoke. "Then, put your hands into the dirt and think of a shape or an animal or even a person and let the energy go into the dirt," Minato showed Naruto what he meant for him to do while he spoke, then he stepped behind his son as Naruto tried as his father told him to.

Jiraiya sat from the bench confused and watched interestedly. If Naruto was anything like his father then Jiraiya expected a good result, he just did not know what to expect of the result as he had never seen the jutsu based on the hand signs.

Naruto did the hand signs slowly but even at his young age the lack of chakra control was evident as his hands had a slight blue tint while he put his hands into the dirt. He was unsure of what Minato meant by release so he just let the energy go as he thought hard of a single thing.

The dirt swirled and moved into a small mound, but Naruto kept channeling chakra into the dirt and the mound grew until it was a foot high and a few feet long. Then, Naruto, being young and inexperienced, lost his grip on the chakra, and it faded allowing the jutsu to complete its work. The mound withdrew to reveal a life-size juvenile fox positioned as if he were sneaking up on something.

Jiraiya looked in awe, his mouth agape and Minato looked at it and smiled broadly. As Minato looked closer he saw what seemed to be texturing of the clay, at certain points it was slightly bristled like an animal's fur should be. Minato looked at it with a feeling of awe and overwhelming pride. Naruto finally opened his eyes and looked at the thing he made and he leapt up and ran around behind it and around again to another side until he had seen all that he could.

"Can I touch it?" he excitedly asked Minato, who just nodded and smiled on.

Naruto dove to the dirt and picked it up to move it around, the clay seemed hard and soft at the same time, it did not move to his touch yet nor did it feel like stone. Naruto was, in a word, overjoyed. He did not know what to expect when his father explained it to him. He most certainly did not expect such good results. But as he looked his new toy over and over, he felt something inside him swell.

_I think I could like you, kit_, was what he thought he heard. He stopped and looked around for a short second then he continued to play with his new clay fox.

"Minato, your son is a damn genius," Jiraiya whispered.

Minato just looked at him and winked. Only time would tell Jiraiya and Minato just how much of a genius he would be. Naruto was not acting the genius at the moment, instead he was running around the park, he finally stopped and sat on the edge of a fountain with the fox in front of him. A small, black-haired girl approached him slowly. She was trying to look disinterested in him as she approached, but anyone who watched knew her intent.

"That's so cute," she said as she slowly reached for his fox.

That was the first time he looked at her, only paying attention because she made a noise. She was around his height, with barely-lavender-eyes which he found intriguing, her skin looked as soft as cream and was almost as pale and her small smile, had they both been about ten years older, would have made his heart melt at the sweetness.

"My Daddy showed me a jutsu that made him," he said hopping to his feet and holding the fox out to her.

"So your father made this?" she said in a high-pitched, quiet voice looking it over in admiration.

"No, I did," he said pointing his thumb to his chest. "Daddy just showed me how."

"It's beautiful," she chirped.

"I know! Isn't it amazing! I love jutsu!" Naruto said excitedly.

"I'm Hyuuga Hinata, by the way," Hinata said as she handed the fox back to Naruto.

"I'm Namikaze Naruto!" he said smiling widely. "My daddy's over there," he pointed to their bench, "talking with Uncle Jiraiya."

"Oh, there you are Hinata," a tall woman with black hair and the same lavender eyes as Hinata said as she walked behind her daughter. "And you've found a friend. Who are you young man?"

"I'm Namikaze Naruto!" he said happily.

"And where's your daddy?" the older Hyuuga asked.

"He's over there with Uncle Jiraiya," he said pointing again. "Look what I made!" he said as he excitedly handed her his clay fox.

"This is amazing," she said with unrestrained awe.

"He made it himself, Mommy," Hinata said as she hugged her mother's leg.

"Did you?" she looked at Naruto mouth slightly agape.

"He certainly did, Hyuuga-dono," Minato said with his right hand in a pocket and his left gesturing to Jiraiya, "and he can attest to it."

"Yondaime-sama and Jiraiya-sama," she said bowing.

"No need for that now, we're all off duty here," Minato said waving off her bow, that trademark smile splitting his face.

"As you say," she handed the fox to Naruto. "Your son is very gifted to be able to do such a thing so early in life."

"You don't know the half of it," Minato joked.

"Well, as much as I hate to cut a meeting with both the Yondaime and Jiraiya short, Hinata and I are headed to an appointment with the clan council," she said with another smaller bow.

"Don't stay on our account," Jiraiya said with a small smirk on his face.

She nodded and called Hinata to her side and the turned to leave.

"Bye Naruto-kun!" Hinata called back to him.

"Bye Hinata-chan!" he called back waving widely over his head.

"Have you made a friend, Naruto-chan?" Minato said ruffling his son's hair.

"Mhm-hm!" Naruto grabbed his father's hand as he spoke. "Where are we going now?"

"Anywhere, anything you want to do, Jiraiya?" Minato said as he looked to his teacher.

Jiraiya grumbled something then spoke aloud, "Well, a spar would be fine with me and I would like to read some scrolls in your library, so how about your place?"

"Should we take Jiraiya home, Naruto?" Minato said as he looked at his son.

Naruto whispered to his father, who bent down to listen then stood up and spoke to Jiraiya.

"If you can beat him, you can come inside," Minato smiled. "And I'll be watching for any illegal acts on your part."

Naruto sprinted along the street, weaving through the crowd for home.

"Bu-wha-he…" Jiraiya floundered as he watched Naruto run off. He looked to Minato who only shrugged and smiled wider.

"You're both brats!" he said as he leaped for the rooftops, only to have Minato rip him back to the ground by his hair.

"Foul! Two minute penalty on top of the minute head-start!" Minato yelled loudly.

Jiraiya looked at him shocked then sat on the ground and pouted. He knew it wouldn't be a three minute wait for him: Minato's sense of time was always twice as fast as any other normal human being's.

Another minute and Naruto was still unwinded.

Another half minute and Minato gave Jiraiya the ok.

"Brats!" Jiraiya yelled as he took off along the streets, a happy smile splitting his face.

Minato followed him closely and watched for anything he could penalize Jiraiya on. They approached an intersection and Minato called for Jiraiya to stop.

"What now?" he whined.

"Thirty second break for old men," he said simply.

Jiraiya looked at him dumbfounded and waited in a not-so-patient manner. After about a minute Minato let Jiraiya run. Jiraiya started to run and was pumping chakra into his legs to speed himself up. He was able to do this for about ten seconds before Minato caught on and scissor swept him as he stepped.

"Foul! Illegal use of chakra!" Minato called from the ground behind Jiraiya.

"Oh come on! Can't I at least try to beat or even get close to him?" Jiraiya rolled over and looked at his former student.

"Get going then and use only your legs and the road," Minato said smiling.

Jiraiya rolled onto his belly and did a reverse kick-up running before he was fully erect, a grin across his whole face. He remembered doing something like this with Minato. They had races that spanned the whole of Konoha from one side to the other. He would always penalize Minato for anything he could, leaving Minato to use only his legs, but Minato would always be right behind him or they would tie. Jiraiya even rode a runner frog once and Minato still tied him.

Then he remembered the time they raced and Minato first used Hiraishin on him. They were at the agreed upon starting line and Jiraiya gave the start. He leapt onto a nearby roof and upon not hearing Minato move he looked back. But Minato was not there. He panicked that he might lose the race so he used a runner frog and told it where to run and to hurry. When he arrived Minato turned and smiled at him, then stepped aside to reveal that he had had the time to draw several rather elaborate drawings in some nearby trees with his kunai. He asked how he had done it so quickly. Minato had simply smiled and said:

"You never said I couldn't use Hiraishin."

He smiled distantly as he rounded the last corner to see Naruto climbing a nearby tree. His visage brightened as he sprinted madly for the front gate which he nimbly leapt and continued to run for the door. He flung it open and was about to cry out in success when a pillow swung down from a simple trap, striking him in the face. He was leveled by the completely unsuspected blow. Minato had followed close behind and saw the blow and the fall that followed immediately after, and had fallen over laughing.

Jiraiya rolled onto his stomach to glare at his student which allowed him to see the note stuck on the back of the pillow. It read: 'I beat you uncle Jiraiya.' It was hastily and poorly scrawled in purple colored pencil and therefore could only have been written by Naruto. He looked up the tree to see him on the second set of branches sitting and smiling at him, he glanced at Minato who burst into fresh laughter upon looking at him. Jiraiya rolled his eyes and walked under Naruto.

"Hey, kid, can I still come in? After all I did fall for the trap," He smiled at the memory.

Naruto hopped down into Jiraiya's arms, "Yes, you may, but you will be my servant for the day."

Jiraiya laughed and walked inside carrying Naruto, "You got it, kid."


	5. Beginnings

The years went by, sometimes slowly sometimes in the blink of an eye. But they were all happy, for the most part. There were the times of intense nightmares for one or the other blonde but always about Kushina's death. But even in these times, the years moved on.

This year was moving slowly for both of the blondes. It was Naruto's first year at the academy. Minato had taken to training with Naruto since the boy was five. Since the very beginning, Naruto displayed an unusually good grasp of taijutsu, which was mirrored by his horrible chakra control that seemed to worsen with age.

When it was a month away: Naruto was approaching insanity waiting for the day to come. Two years ago he had begged his father to start training him and he felt ready for the academy, more so than most anyway.

"Father please train me some more!" was among the most commonly heard things in the Namikaze estates. Minato had trained his son as much as he thought he should, he wanted to help his son, to train him, but he also did not want to test his son's limits yet. That and he was not good at teaching the basics, he was horrible at teaching the basics actually. He did them all by reflex now and it had been so many years since he learned them.

But this month, too, came to pass and it was Naruto's first day at the academy.

"I want you to do well and makes some awesome friends, kiddo," Jiraiya said as he smiled down serenely at Naruto.

"I will, Uncle Ero," Naruto chirped and looked to his father as Jiraiya stared at him in disbelief.

"Have fun today, son, don't get too rowdy and listen to the teachers," Minato chided as he crouched in front of his son.

"I will, Otou-chan," Naruto said as he jumped forward and hugged his dad. Minato happily returned the hug and squeezed his son tightly.

"Bye, Otou-chan," Naruto said as he turned and ran off into the academy.

"Don't worry, kid, he'll do fine," Jiraiya said.

"I'm afraid he'll do too well. I don't want him to be top of his class, but I don't want to put the same pressure I had growing up on him: to always be third," Minato said as he watched his son's back distantly.

"Afraid he can't do it?" Jiraiya asked in earnest.

"I don't want that pressure on him, but if he does too well I'm afraid of him being overconfident or becoming lazy," Minato responded furrowing his brow.

"He won't, he has too much of you in him to be lazy and I checked this year's roster: a Hyuuga, an Uchiha, a Nara, Yamanaka and an Akimichi, an Aburame and an Inuzuka I think he'll have some sort of competition," Jiraiya said smirking.

"One would hope, one would hope," Minato mumbled as he turned and walked to his office with Jiraiya trailing behind.

Naruto was nervously sitting at a chair while the teacher introduced himself at the front of the class. He had seen someone who he thought he recognized from many years ago but he was not sure and he did not have time to check before the teacher started in. He had settled for glancing periodically at her, she was seated in front of him.

Hinata was at the front of the class, sitting quietly. She always sat quietly. But she never sat at the front of anything. As the instructor was about to start she began feeling eyes on the back of her head. A small warmth that soon turned into a boring feeling in her skull. She could not turn around to see for that was considered rude, so she sat there and tried to endure the feeling.

"I am Instructor Mizuki," his voice rang loudly across the large room, "I will be your instructor for this year. These first few weeks will simply be introduction, and I understand that some of you may have already been through this. I simply ask you not complain too loudly."

After he finished speaking, he started throwing out books that landed on expertly in front of each student top up. Naruto opened the book and started reading the first chapter. He got through the title page before he decided to skip ahead.

During this time, a certain dark haired girl was sweating the metaphorical bullets. The feeling had stopped, which scared her more than the attention.

_Oh no, I can't feel those eyes on me,_ Hinata thought in panic as she felt the gaze leave, only a warm spot on her head remained..

While Hinata was scared stiff, that certain Yamanaka was counting.

_One, two, maybe three_, she thought as she pointed to certain boys from her vantage point in the back of the class. _Definitely two, maybe three good-looking guys here, pretty good start._

Naruto had been oblivious to his being selected and was going about his merry reading of this boring book in front of him. He had skipped the chapters on chakra molding and gone straight to the first jutsus he was to learn. He mentally sighed, so he thought, as he already knew all the jutsus he had seen.

"Am I boring you Mister" he paused looking for his name on the roster, "Namika… ze…" he stopped midway as his figurative gerbil ran its wheel. He had to shake his head to correct himself, and Naruto was confused by this whole situation, as he hadn't heard a word past the man's name and was only called to attention by his own.

"I apologize, Namikaze Naruto-san, but I would ask you try to contain your disapproval," Mizuki said courteously.

In all corners of the room the students ears rang with his surname. They knew not where, but they all knew that the name sounded dreadfully familiar.

The next activity that the class did was an introductory roll call. Everyone introduced themselves to the class, standing in the front and, of course, some students liked this more than others.

When Hinata went to the front of the class to introduce herself, Naruto watched her intently, which made her even more nervous when she realized that _he_ had been watching her. She fidgeted as she introduced herself. She sat down proud that she had only fidgeted and that she had not stuttered as well.

The students went down the rows introducing themselves. When it was Naruto's turn, he walked to the front and spoke the same line as everyone else, and no one had batted an eyelash until he said his full name, at which point, everyone finally realized who he was related to. The charm and skilled strength of the Namikaze genius was well known. The electric blue and extremely expressive eyes were also a hit with the ladies.

Naruto did not seem to notice this as he walked back up to his seat glancing at Hinata and Ino once on his way up and occasionally at Hinata while he threw sidelong glances at Ino from his middle row seat. Naruto could not wait to get started into some actual lessons while the majority of the girls could not wait until break to talk to him.

Mizuki drawled on for what seemed like days to Naruto and all he had accomplished was the handing out of a few more books. Naruto was the first out the door when the class was dismissed for the day. The first day was always only a half-day and Naruto wanted to get some training in so he would not have to proclaim today a total waste.

xxxxxxxxx Later that evening…

As he was doing simple target practice about a lock from his home, he felt like he was being watched. He stopped and looked around, hoping to find someone. Seeing no one he was worried about developing paranoia, but continued hitting the inner third of his target.

Within five minutes, he felt the watching again. This time he growled lightly to himself and searched again with his eyes quickly but trying not to be noticed. But in order to see all around him he had to turn, and the best chance to see something behind you is to look quickly, or so he thought. He whipped his head around and caught a glimpse of a dark something dashing behind a bush with a muffled 'meep.'

Finding this a rather odd happening he slowly turned back to his target practice. He waited until he felt the eyes again and as soon as he did he bolted around dropping his kunai. The dark haired figure jumped up and stood bolt upright, almost shaking. He tripped and stumbled almost immediately.

"Hinata, what are you doing here?" he asked softly from his spot on the ground.

Hinata just stood there, looking like she was scared witless.

Sighing, Naruto walked beside and waved his hand in front of her face. She did not so much as twitch. With a groan Naruto tossed her onto his shoulder. He carried her into his living room hopefully his father would know what to do.

From her spot not five feet in the brush from Hinata, Ino sighed with relief. _ He didn't spot me, good,_ she thought with utter relief rolling off of her. _He won't know, I may not yet be a total creep to him._

When Hinata finally came to, Naruto was quietly sleeping with a scroll of sorts strewn across his lap. She rose quietly from the couch and tried to sneak out the door.

"Well, good you finally woke up," Minato said from a stool behind her.

Hinata squeeked and looked at him nervously.

"Don't act so scared, I'm sure I'm not half as bad as your father says," he said with a smile.

"A-actually, he sp-speaks only well of you, s-sir," she whispered.

He smiled and said, "Go along, I'm sure he's waiting for you."

She nodded and rushed out the door. Minato smiled, _Naruto, you better not get attatched to her because I hate _that_ talk we'll have to have…_


	6. Tests Pt 1

Naruto stared out his window seat in class. The lower grades were out and running laps around and through the forest. His final year and the top of his class, Naruto was bored as Shikamaru though Naruto found it much harder to sleep to Iruka's loud voice. He was watching as a kid tripped and righted himself again only to trip again ten feet farther.

"… Does anyone know? Naruto?" Iruka asked.

"Ram," he said without looking at Iruka.

"Right," he said and continued his speech on the simple ninjutsu. His father was not teaching him anything but his taijutsu, but that did not mean Naruto could not raid the family library and teach himself. Naruto was much farther along than these lessons.

Minato taught himself most of what he knew or so he said, and he was incredibly proud that Naruto was better than he was at that age. He loved his son and once his son reached the level he had when Jiraiya started tutoring him, he would teach his son all he knew, this plan was only made harder when Naruto would beg and plead for training.

xxxxxxxx

Minato sat in his office and stared out his window watching birds play in the trees. His son would graduate in a week, which both excited and scared him. He was proud his son was graduating but scared of his son being in active duty. He imagined this was a hard time for any parent. He knew his son was more than ready but surprise situations were always possible. He stared at those birds thinking if they experienced something like this when their chicks learned to fly.

xxxxxxxx

Naruto walked out of class slowly when break was called. He strolled along until he found a park near the academy where a small group of kids were playing. He smiled at them and took a step towards the group but hesitated thinking he'd be late to class if he played with them. A loud splashing sound came from the academy, the windows of a few classrooms leaked black.

Naruto giggled and walked toward the kids and began playing with them. He had almost forgotten the several ink bombs he had set in the morning. He had played with the kids for thirty minutes when Iruka finally found him.

Naruto smiled and stared off absently as he was receiving a longwinded lecture by an ink-covered man whom he assumed was Iruka. The ink-covered class was staring inky daggers at him with the exception of Shikamaru who had been asleep since he got to class, Hinata and Ino had been outside feeding birds and gathering flowers and were giggling under their breathes at the prank. Naruto smiled through the whole thing and beamed when Iruka assigned a class punishment of laps around the academy.

Iruka never truly got mad at Naruto for his pranks, Naruto and Minato had explained that he only did it when the class moved too slowly. Iruka saw it as a reminder to push the kids harder.

Naruto ran the laps happily, sprinting and jogging them to keep ahead by enough. As he passed Sasuke he felt the typical icy glare. Sasuke had always been a rival and he always sought to exceed Naruto, but ever since his brother killed the whole clan it became something more akin to a jealous hatred. He felt like Sasuke hated him for no other reason than that he was better than him.

Naruto finished his laps first and he had spent some time while running, after lapping them a few times, talking with Ino and Hinata. He stood around watching birds and other small animals in front of the academy waiting for the rest of the class to finish their laps. They finished the fifty laps some time after Naruto did, and once they had all caught their breath Iruka led them back inside to continue lessons on genjutsu to finish out that boring Monday.

Naruto finished out his final week of the academy with only one more prank on the class, this time it involved lots of small rodents being released from under random desks, which made him reap Ino's anger. But he finished out his academy career at the top of his class and the top of the prankster list, this list was scored by number of pranks, technique involved, creativity and the average of people pranked per prank. He beat his father by four points.

The day after graduating he lay with his head on his desk waiting for the call of teams, when he got hit with a water balloon from behind. He whipped around to see who got him, which flicked water from his long blonde mop onto the people around him. Ino was less than pleased by this.

"Yo," Shikamaru called out with a water balloon bag in hand. "That's for the ink, you don't know how long that took to get out of my clothes."

"Hah, like you washed it," Naruto called back smiling.

"True," he said as he sat next to Naruto. "Whose team do you think you'll be on?"

"Anyone but Sasuke and I'll be fine," Naruto said leaning on his crossed arms on the table.

"Why not him? He's second in the class only to you," Shikamaru asked genuinely curious.

"He seems to hate me, has ever since his clan died," Naruto said sullenly. He never did like the thought of people hating him and he hated that something bad had to happen to anyone.

"I wonder why that is?" Shikamaru asked the air as Chouji sat next to him eating his chips.

"Hey, guys," he said eating another chip. "What are you up to?"

The three of them continued talking softly until Iruka began class. Shikamaru was always lazy but he spoke more to Chouji and acted almost like the average energy level student when Naruto was around. They had become friends early in the academy years. Naruto was the first person his age to challenge him at shougi, also the only one to stalemate him and get within one point of him, and Chouji could talk to either of them for hours, but none of them minded silence.

Iruka finally called the gathered students to order and began announcing team lists.

"Hinata, Shino, Kiba, you three are with Kurenai," he read blankly, the team had no cheer but it seemed no love was there either. Shino simply nodded, Hinata seemed to lower in her seat and Kiba had no reaction other than to rub Akamaru's head. Akamaru was perfectly fine with that.

"Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, you're with Asuma," Iruka braced himself for Ino's shouts.

"WHAT THE HELL?!? Why am I paired with those two?" she screamed wt the top of her lungs.

"No comment," Iruka stated calmly, which tipped two of them off that their parents had something to do with it.

"Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke," there was a loud cheer from Sakura, and Naruto's head cracked the desk as he slammed it down. "Uhm… You're with Kakashi."

xxxxxxxxx

Sakura, ever since that same fateful night, was completely enthralled with Sasuke. She admired his 'strength' of will and of body to have survived. Sasuke did no bragging about it and told nothing about that night, she filled in all the supposed facts exactly as she wanted to.

Sasuke was guided by one drive: killing his brother. He had even set up a few markers to how close he was to that goal, Naruto among them.

Naruto only had one driving goal: to best his father. A friendly besting but he still wanted to outdo his father, or at the very least follow in his stead.

These things passed through Kakashi's mind as he read through the report on the team he was being assigned. _I wish I could have spent more time with you, Naruto, but Minato was afraid I'd 'corrupt' you. There's nothing wrong with starting early._

Kakashi closed the report and moved to sit on the rail of the academy roof. He stared out in the direction of the memorial stone that had Obito's name. He stared like that for two hours just thinking about his fallen friend.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke sat quietly in the classroom. They were alone, the last team to get picked up. Naruto silently stood and wandered the front of the classroom looking at anything mildly interesting.

"What are you doing, Naruto?" Sakura asked blankly. She knew he was the top of the class, but she still had no respect for him.

"Observing," Naruto replied simply.

"Observing what? What could possibly be of interest up there?" she said almost mockingly.

"If you must ask, you won't understand," he was only doing it out of boredom, but he did not want to work out with them watching nor did he feel like saying he was bored. Not to those two. They would accuse him of being a show-off or an ADD child.

Naruto grabbed an eraser and propped on the door way so that any vibration would knock it off eraser side down. He calmly walked back to the front and started drawing on the board in chalk. He was running over a battle plan.

Several minutes after, Kakashi walked in and the eraser fell as planned and splashed out chalk on his head and shoulders.

Kakashi looked down at the offending eraser. He slowly bent down and picked it up, glancing at his dusty shoulder. He glanced at Sasuke and Sakura, who both looked on the edge of hysterics, and finally rested his gaze on Naruto, who had not looked up from his fifth battle plan.

He set the eraser in hand and threw it at Naruto's head.

"You're a brat," he said smiling inwardly. _Just like your father._

"And you're late," Naruto said smiling brightly looking remarkably undusted despite an eraser landing on the board in front and to the right of him.

"I was helping an elderly cat across the street. Anyway, we'll talk on the roof," he said as he popped there in a dust cloud. The three sighed in unison and made their way to the roof.

On the roof Kakashi leaned on the rail casually, staring at his three students.

"Well, first things first. Introductions are in order, I'll go first to give an example," he drawled in his fake manner. "My name is Hatake Kakashi, I like a few things, I have a couple dreams and I have many hobbies."

"So all we really learned was your name," Naruto called out softly. He was trying to remember anything his father had told about Kakashi.

"Yes, and since you're so eager to speak why don't you go, Naruto," Kakashi said with an invisible smile.

"I am Namikaze Naruto. I like ramen, training, my father and hopefully my teammates. I dislike very few things. I only have one dream of surpassing my father. I have only a few hobbies," he said cheerily.

"My name is Haruno Sakura. I like… someone. My dreams are… Well my hobbies are…" she squealed and went on blushing and being a girly nuisance.

_Please tell me this is not going to become a constant _nuisance, Naruto and Kakashi thought in unknown unison.

"And you, oh quiet one?" Kakashi asked looking at Sasuke.

"I am Uchiha Sasuke. I don't have a dream, but an ambition, which is to kill a certain man. I have few likes and many dislikes and even fewer hobbies," Sasuke said with a self-righteous attitude.

Kakashi and Naruto were on the verge of puking while Sakura was swooning over his antics.

"With that out of the way I'd like you to meet me at training ground seven at 0800 tomorrow. We'll see if you can actually graduate then," Kakashi said sternly.

"But, sensei, we already passed the exam, why are we being tested again?" Sakura asked almost dumbly.

"Because this is the true test. The test you passed simply weeded out those who were not even worthy of the attempt to be a genin. This is the actual genin test, a test which has a 66 failure rate," Kakashi said morosely. "And my judgment right now is that none of you will pass, not even close."

The three kids in front of him stared back in shock. Sasuke turned his gaze to a glare of dark determination. Sakura continued looking worriedly at him and then Sasuke. Naruto smiled in his own happy way, he always enjoyed a test.

"Oh, and don't eat breakfast. You'll only throw it right back up," his final words as he jumped off the ledge to disappear with a pop. Sakura looked slightly morose at missing breakfast. Sasuke looked like he was going to glare a hole in a brick with his spiteful glare. Naruto looked like he had not heard the part about missing breakfast.

"Well, I'll see you two then," Naruto said as he turned and walked home with an eager smile across his face.

"Oh, go ahead and eat breakfast, he won't show up until a few hours after eight," he said turning around and then continuing home. He did not wait for an acknowledgement.

"So, Sasuke, would you… want to go… out with me tonight?" Sakura asked timidly.

"No, I need to train," Sasuke said simply as he stalked off to his personal dojo.

"Oh… ok…" she sulked homeward hoping for better results tomorrow.


	7. Tests Pt 2

Author's Preface:

Before reading this chapter, I would like to thank all of you who have reviewed for me. I find it quite helpful. But one thing was called to my attention. My last two chapters were indeed rushed. I know you don't get alerts for reposted so I am alerting you now. I have added to my last two chapters and changed parts of the stories. Since I will be building on these changes, it would be recommend for you to reread chapters titled 'Beginnings' and 'Tests Pt 1.' Thanks you all for reading. My chapters will be slower as I am going to be putting myself under more quality control.

xxxxxxxxx

Naruto walked around the training ground slowly. He was the first person there at 0600. He wandered the small clearing simply enjoying the crisp morning air. He normally got up at this hour to train, but because of the test from his new sensei he did not want to be tired for this torture program.

He was drawing in the sand with a kunai, when Sasuke walked up at 0730.

"Hey, Uchiha-san," Naruto called looking up at him from his drawing.

"Un," he called back. Sasuke may not have like Naruto, but he knew he was not strong enough to challenge Naruto yet.

Sasuke sat in the clearing and stared at a single blade of grass, the thoughts in his head God only knew, and no one ever wanted to know. Naruto assumed it was something completely self-dignifying.

At exactly eight o'clock exactly Sakura walked into the field. Immediately she started doting on Sasuke. Sasuke put up for her flirting for about an hour, at which he decided to end it.

"Quiet, you pathetic girl," he growled in attempt at being threatening.

"But-but I only-" she started weakly about to cower from him.

"Now," he growled again.

She squeaked softly and pulled back another ten feet from him. From Naruto's only glance at her he thought she was about to cry.

"That was a bit much, Sasuke," Naruto spoke lowly. He was not trying to be threatening but he did not like women being treated so.

"And what are you going to do about it?" he stated simply turning his glare at Naruto.

"Depends on what you do," he said simply pulling himself back from his anger.

"And what do you expect me to do, Namikaze?" he sneered Naruto's surname his tone dripping with contempt. The Uchiha were the best and strongest clan in Konoha. Right?

"I expect nothing," he replied grinning. "I do love surprises," he almost laughed.

What Sasuke did next was not a surprise to Naruto, Sakura was the only one who had not seen this coming. Sasuke charged the four feet to Naruto, when he felt he was close enough he threw his right fist at Naruto's jaw. Naruto struck his forearm to Sasuke's wrist in a lucky shot then turned the recoil from the strike to a boost for a back fisted strike to Sasuke's right cheekbone.

Sakura gasped, Sasuke was pissed and Kakashi was surprised. Naruto was the only calm one in the training field. He knew that Sasuke would challenge him eventually, he never tried to anticipate when that would be for he truly did like surprises.

Sasuke landed hard on his mouth, eating grass, sand and dirt. Sakura dashed to his side, only to have her hands swatted away. He got up and coughed up some debris. He turned his gaze back to Naruto, his eyes burning with hate.

"Hey, Kakashi," Naruto called to their teacher who had been watching since the air became heated by Sasuke.

Kakashi strolled out of the bush he was in and stood laxly in front of the dysfunctional trio. Sakura was fawning over Sasuke trying to help him, but he shouldered her off. Almost in tears, she walked to the other side of Naruto.

"You three seem to be getting along well," he said with feigned disinterested.

"I'd hate to have you as an enemy if you consider this 'getting along well,'" Naruto said sarcastically.

"Hmph," Sasuke sneered at Naruto as he stood looking at Kakashi with his fists in his pockets.

_This will be an interesting group_, Kakashi thought looking between them. Naruto was standing aloofly watching Kakashi, Sakura stood tensely watching the ground in front of her and then Kakashi and Sasuke was almost watching Kakashi but Kakashi knew he was really in his mind hating his own weakness and being beaten by Naruto. Again.

"Well, we may as well get started," Kakashi said as he put three boxes on a stump and then a timer of sorts beside the bento boxes.

"This is your final genin test: you have until noon," he tied a pair of bells to his waist, " to get these bells from my waist, your best tactics are stealth and chance. If you don't get a bell, I will tie you to a stump and eat your lunch in front of you."

"There's only two bells," Sakura spoke quietly.

"One of us is getting screwed regardless," Sasuke said attempting a low voice.

"That is true," Kakashi admitted. "One of you will definitely be sitting at the stump. Better get started, you only have until noon."

The three of them leapt in three different directions.

Kakashi stood in the clearing reading his book. He had waited for ten minutes letting them get settled. He looked at Sakura nearly moping under her bush, then to Sasuke hidden in his tree and Naruto…

Naruto stood right in front of him.

"You know, that isn't the best strategy…" he said to the blonde kid in front of him.

"And your point is?" Naruto said twisting his head to the side.

"That this won't get you anywhere," he said sliding his feet a bit wider into a more prepared stance.

"Oh, yes it will," Naruto said right before he charged at Kakashi.

Kakashi slid his right foot back keeping his left arm in front and his right close beside. Naruto ran full speed covering fifty of the fifty-eight yards between them in two seconds flat. When he was five feet away, he dove feet first to scissor sweep his legs, but his teacher leapt over it. Naruto twisted and launched himself up to put both of his feet into Kakashi's foot. Kakashi used Naruto's kick to get some distance between them.

"Good, your grasp on taijutsu is quite strong," Kakashi said in praise.

Naruto simply stood up from his crouched landing and smirked.

He charged again, covering the thirty yards in barely a second. This time he spun to deliver his right heel to Kakashi's right forearm.

_Almost too strong,_ Kakashi thought as he resisted the cringe from the bruise he was going to have in the morning.

Naruto landed behind Kakashi. They both turned and threw a straight right. Both deflected with their left arms, Kakashi's fist was closer to a strike than Naruto's.

"Thanks," Naruto said as he dropped a smoke bomb from his fist.

Kakashi jumped away in surprise. When the some had cleared, Naruto was nowhere to be seen. Not even a trace of him.

"Didn't expect that," he said softly truly surprised at Naruto's taijutsu.

Sakura sat in awe under her bush. She had seen Naruto fight but she never expected him to be so skilled: to tie a jonin. For a genin, this was a feat no matter how long the tie lasted. She almost screamed when Naruto was suddenly beside her.

"Shhhh, no screaming," he said smiling. "I have a way to beat him. How fast can you sprint?"

"Uhm… why?" she said softly in confusion.

"I can distract him if you can get us bells," he said. "If you can sprint from behind me and dive under me to grab the bells, we got it!" Naruto was getting more and more excited as this day continued.

"I think so, if this can work what about Sasuke?" she said unsure and unbelieving.

Naruto simply pointed his thumb to the clearing. Sasuke was already fighting Kakashi. He seemed to be doing better than Naruto, he got a finger to the bells. They seemed to be talking for a second then Sasuke performed some hand signs and spewed a twenty-foot wide fireball from his mouth.

Sakura gasped and Naruto looked at it quietly.

Sasuke looked alarmed after the fireball cleared. Sakura did not see why until Sasuke was pulled into the ground. She almost ran at him only something held her wrist. She looked back to see it was Naruto.

"Sneak around behind him, this is my best chance," he sprinted out of the bushes almost silently. He got within four feet of Kakashi before the gray-haired man whipped around to block his punch. Grunting Naruto twisted to send his foot to Kakashi's head. His teacher ducked and tried to throw him into the air by his ankle, only to have Naruto flip out of it landing on his feet. Naruto continued his spin and threw his foot to Kakashi's ankle.

_Great waterfalls he's quick!_ Kakashi thought as he was a foot off the ground.

He was even more surprised when Naruto turned and threw his arm up at his stomach. Out of sheer instinct not planning, Kakashi threw both forearms to his stomach. Naruto grabbed the man's sleeve and tried to throw him to the ground. Kakashi sprang his feet to catch himself and pulled Naruto by his collar close and high for an upper cut.

Naruto smiled and threw a wild punch to the spike head's mask, only to have the upper cutting hand grab his fist.

"Sakura, now!" Naruto yelled but she was already under him. Naruto kicked at Kakashi's ribs to further distract the man. Kakashi threw his right hand, which held Naruto's fist, to block the kick with his tricep and attempt to swat Sakura's hands off his bells, but she was already ambling away by the time his hand got there. Naruto was beaming as he was held above Kakashi's head.

Kakashi was speechless as he stared at Naruto and Sakura the latter of which was trying to sooth Sasuke's hurt feelings. She was only aggravating him further.

"Sakura, don't," Naruto chided. "He doesn't want your help. Let him flounder until he asks for it."

"… ok…" she was silent the rest of the day.

"Well, I've half a mind to pass you two. But two man teams don't exist so I'm leaning towards failing you all," the tall silverfish said. "I'll give you another shot after lunch. Don't feed Sasuke. If he gets any food, you all fail." Kakashi disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Naruto sighed and opened his bento.

"Sasuke, what do you like for food?" Naruto said picking at his food.

"What does it matter, we'll fail if you feed me," he grumbled back.

"Answer the question or I'll tighten those knots of yours," Naruto said grouchily.

"Fine, I like beef…" he complained.

Naruto took out a few pieces of beef and put them on Sasuke's nose. He giggled at the sight then put them into the Uchiha's mouth. Sakura immediately put her beef with some rice on top to Sasuke's lips. He ate their food begrudgingly. After all was said and done, they each had eaten about a third of the food.

Kakashi watched the whole ordeal, and when he deemed it the right time he made his appearance.

Kakashi 'poofed' in front of them with the trademarked smoke cloud.

"Hey, how was lunch? I hope you didn't feed the dark haired one," He said slowly and softly.

They looked at each other and then Sasuke and Sakura both looked at Naruto.

"Fine, jerks," he mumbled. "The food was awful, and we did feed Sasuke."

"Well, then, I guess that means…" Kakashi started ominously, "that you three…"

their breathe was baited for the conclusion.

"Pass!" Kakashi said making a creepy arch with his one visible eye.

Naruto almost shivered at the expression.

"But we broke your rule…" Sakura started.

"You did, which was what I wanted you to do," he said. "This whole test is designed to teach students that teamwork and self-sacrifice are much better than trying to take on a stronger enemy alone, which Naruto made you a part of when he enlisted you in his plan."

"But…" she started again.

"Finish your ideas, Sakura, they're usually good ones. It is said that those who disobey the rules are trash, but that those who don't care for their friends are lower than trash. Teamwork and caring for your teammates are your strongest tools as ninja," he said simply.

"Ok, tomorrow we start missions together," Kakashi said snapping his fingers and giving a lazy thumbs up. "Our new designation is Team 7. Meet tomorrow at seven for your first mission. Dismissed."

The three students walked home. Their afternoon was considered a lot of for some, but two of them were heading home to train or play as they saw it, the third did not know what she would do when she got home. But all three knew: a long road lay ahead.


	8. Attack

It had been a month since it began: his real career

It had been a month since it began: his real career. It had been the worst month of his life. The month had gone slowly, so dreadfully slowly. Morning missions rescuing cats and other petty animals, cleaning the sides of buildings, weeding gardens, and so many other dreadful and abhorrently boring jobs.

Naruto was bored out of his mind. He was not going to complain to his father for that would be called special treatment. He never liked people assuming things about him or his success based on his lineage. But he was not the only one who was bored with these simple missions. Sasuke was beyond aggravated by the low status of their missions. He never said anything to indicate this, but the air surrounding him always seemed darker once a mission was proclaimed to be a low-end one. Sakura remained indifferent to their mission status or rank. She liked not having to actually work for their missions as this gave her lots of time on missions to simply ogle Sasuke while he was not looking.

Kakashi loved these missions. He had so much time to read. He could just sit there watching the kids work or he could lay back and read his little book, his little orange book. That book which was always present in his pouch. That book which his students plotted to steal one day.

It had been a month, now they stood in front of Minato receiving a mission statement.

"Hmmm," he said looking over some mission reports with Iruka next to him. "I think I can give you a C class mission now. An extended one."

Naruto beamed at the thought, Sakura hid her disappointment well, and Sasuke actually mumbled a response.

"About time," he grumbled softly.

"For that, Sasuke, I might just recede this order," he said looking at the boy darkly.

Naruto looked depressed again, Sakura's eyes lit up a bit more than usual for missions, and Sasuke turned his head to the side sourly.

"I'm sorry, sensei, he's kinda sour about having to catch that cat so many times," Kakashi said scratching the back of his head.

"I see," Minato said turning back to the mission report. "I'll still send you on it. Your job is to escort a man to wave country and protect him while he constructs a bridge there."

Minato motioned to a clerk who brought the man in. the man flung the door open with a wooden clack. He was a tall man, with frizzy gray hair. The smell of sake filled the room as quickly as he opened the door.

"These are my escorts?" he grumbled. "They look like a bunch of brats. We've got an emo, a flirt and a ferret."

"Why on earth am I a ferret?" Naruto asked confoundedly.

"Because your face says your serious but your body says your joking," Tazuna grouched back taking a swig of his sake.

"… that's not cool…" Naruto whined.

"Neither is being assigned a group of kids for protection," he shot back again sending the smell of poor sake into their noses.

Kakashi sighed, Sasuke brooded, Sakura tried to look excited and Naruto beamed at leaving his home village.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The walk had started out with a dull gate, uneventful, the birds were even quiet almost silent. Naruto had assumed the lead, Sakura was next to Kakashi and Tazuna in the middle with Sasuke walking silently in the rear.

He for once was not in a dark mood. He was focused on the wildlife, or lack thereof, and the seeming peacefulness and forgetfulness of life outside the village. He began to think on what he would be like if he had grown up out here rather than in the city. His thoughts also wandered to a certain girl in front of him and how she actually as pretty in her own way.

Sakura's thoughts were falling behind her, on the dark head with a duck butt. She could not pinpoint what it was in him that she liked: she had never questioned it until now. But despite the fact she found nothing particularly attractive about him, she still liked him. She only hoped that one day he would return her affection.

Naruto was also wondering at love, but not his own. He was wondering what his mother was like. She died long enough ago that all he remembered was the nightmares and her fighting feebly with a sword. He wondered why his father loved her, how they behaved towards each other and what initially drew them together.

Naruto's thoughts were interrupted when he noticed a puddle of clear water in the road. Kakashi also had his line of thought derailed as he looked at the odd puddle. He knew it had not rained in several weeks. They were both immediately set on edge.

The group walked by for the most part unknowingly. Once all the party had passed it, two ninjas rose from the water. One on the shoulder of the other, their re-breathers were out of place this far from a large body of water.

They sprang their trap, they went for the most threatening member of the team: Kakashi. They were in the midst of the group with Kakashi wrapped in their chain. They pulled, they shredded, they scared Sakura witless, they stunned Tazuna, they had killed Kakashi. They had angered Naruto and Sasuke.

Naruto had turned the second he felt movement and ran back the twenty feet he was ahead. Sasuke had sprinted to join the group as soon as he saw Kakashi under attack. Naruto did not have to wait long before he was within range of the enemy ninjas. They had already surrounded him and their chain was definitely not far behind.

Naruto drew a kunai and slashed the chain away every time they tried to wrap him in it. Seconds later Sasuke threw a star that hit and carried their chain into a tree and Naruto threw his kunai into the center of the star pinning their chain to the tree. Sasuke was just about to spin kick the larger of the two when the enemy nin disconnected his chain from his gauntlet. Sasuke continued his kick and charged his fist into the ninja's jaw, staggering him. Sasuke tried for a follow up with a shuriken and another charge.

Naruto ran at his ninja, the smaller and more agile of the two. He blocked the mist ninja's thrust with his left forearm and brought his right fist over the mist's skull, causing a loud crack, then brought it back up and backhanded him. The ninja's head was thrown back and his re-breather was broken off. Naruto followed up with his left fist over the man's skull and back up again, he finished with a right thrust into the man's sternum sending him reeling back.

Kakashi caught the ninja before he hit the ground, holding the larger one under his arm. He threw them both roughly against a tree and started tying them to it.

"Why would they attack us? We don't even look to have money," Sasuke voiced his complaint as he held his right arm.

"I don't know," Kakashi said as he looked to Tazuna. "But he might."

"I-I don't know what you're t-talking about," Tazuna defended cowering slightly.

"Don't you think it odd that a pair of rogue ninja's just attacked us? What reason would they have to do that?" Kakashi pushed.

"Kicks?" Tazuna shrugged desperately.

Kakashi decided that if he allowed the man to stew he might get more answers. He pressed no further but ordered them to trek on.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The boat was barely moving to Naruto. The engine had been cut for fear of detection and the pilot needed to row quietly. But he was still slow. Naruto was sure he could get out and pull it swimming faster than this. '_Why not do it?'_ he thought. He put his hand in the water and knew immediately why he should not. The water had to be near freezing. He settled back into his spot and stared at his feet. Water never interested him, not seas at least. He liked rivers and streams but not oceans or seas, unless there was a storm. Then he liked oceans and seas. But under normal conditions they never seemed to do anything, never moved. He hated not moving. The fog was not helping either. Just concealed what little movement they had.

While Naruto moped about movement, Sasuke was watching the fog warily. He did not like being bested and he did not like being caught off guard, and both had just happened. He was keeping his guard up. But then, Sakura seemed to be settled down ok, maybe he should check on her-no. No, she's a ninja: she can handle herself. He must be alert, wary. Ready.

Sakura was glancing from Kakashi to Tazuna wondering what exactly was going on: why the ninjas attacked them. Kakashi had his mask so she could not read anything from him. But Tazuna. He had kept his ale constantly out. He had not rested much since the attack. He seemed to be in constant fear or near panic. What had him so on edge? Why could he not rest? He had to know something. A random attack would not be this unsettling unless one knew the reasons behind it, no matter the weakness of constitution. She sent him a glare, which being a girl of twelve was not so much as intriguing.

Kakashi had been suspicious of Tazuna since the attack. The man knew something that much was obvious to anyone who looked at him. Kakashi needed to wait until the man could not find an escape and he could only answer. This seemed as good a time as any. He sprung

"So Tazuna, thought of any good excuse as to why those men attacked us? If you expect more men like that, they will only be even more dangerous, which pushes this up to an A or B ranked mission," Kakashi said leering the poor soul into his grave.

"I-I-uh… only the truth," he said defeatedly. "We can't afford those. But it is true, this should be a much higher mission."

"In not providing us accurate data, you may have just cost the Hokage his son," Kakashi said softly but in the most dangerous tone he could muster as he gestured to Naruto who was staring at the boat.

Tazuna was speechless. It took him a whole five minutes to gather himself.

"We need ninja, we need to break free. There's a man, Gato, he has control of the whole country and he's sucking it dry, dry of money and dry of will. The country has lost the will to survive. But if I can complete this bridge, we can break his hold. He controls our shipping but if we make this bridge, we can open new trades. Please, my country needs you. My daughter and grandson need you." He was almost crying by the end of his speech.

Kakashi, knowing the effects of politics and what it would say about Konoha if they pulled out of this mission, was quite pigeonholed. He could not let these kids fight in this mission, but even if they did not fight they could be killed. Given what he knew of Gato, he could only know that he could potentially hire very powerful ninja to do his bidding. He did not want to continue: he hated putting these kids in unnecessary danger. But what it might teach them combined with the hit Konoha's reputation might take forced him to continue. He hoped he did not regret it later.

"Fine, we will continue this mission. It still isn't an A rank. Pray it doesn't become one, for if these kids die, any one of them," Kakashi left off darkly.

"Yes," Tazuna muttered softly.

The three young ones were sitting in the boat, stunned at the fact this had just been announced as a B rank with growth potential. Naruto was excited, as was Sasuke. Sasuke thought it a great test of his skill and see how good he had become in relation to Naruto. Naruto saw this as a great opportunity to get experience and bragging rights. Sakura was stunned and scared. She did not want this to be a dangerous or difficult mission. She hated being pushed. She was not a good fighter in any way. She only knew the rules and the bare minimum basics. But her reason clouded her fear. She saw the possible chance to grow as a ninja, but she shirked from it regardless. The chance of death was too frightening.

They continued the rest of their way on foot. The mango trees to their left and the ruined shacks of homes on their right, they made their way through the small town heading for Tazuna's house which was conveniently in the country outside of town.

Naruto had been feeling a presence watching them as a group but had been unable to pinpoint from where it was. But then suddenly he got it, a tree twenty feet to his right. Deciding on instinct he threw a kunai at the source. A wooden thunk resounded. The group ran over to the tree. A small white rabbit was frothing at the mouth under the kunai. Naruto apologized to the small creature and coddled it. The rabbit's fur caught only the attention of Kakashi. It was well into spring rabbits should be brown by now.

Kakashi made a note of the rabbit but did not tell anyone. Naruto was carrying it now. It still wasn't conscious. They continued down their way and their guard had been on slow decline and now it was about to hit bottom.

But the sound of a large metal object whistling through the air caught all of their ears.


	9. A Misty Afternoon

AN: I hope you liked me

AN: I hope you liked my last chapter ending. I wanted to try my hand at cliffhangers. Any feedback on that would be appreciated. Thank you, Naz, for your review. I will take that cookie and run. My story is my own. I will not cow-toe to your demands. Not even for a cookie.

P.S. I was so swamped at the end of this year with stuff, I apologize for the long, long time in updating.

Metal whistled through the air catching all of their ears.

"Get down!" Kakashi yelled.

Sasuke and Sakura dove for the ground not thinking of their duty to Tazuna. Naruto dove for Tazuna but Kakashi shoved the man down before Naruto could get there.

The metal turned out to be an incredibly large sword. It soared harmlessly over-head and sunk deeply into a tree. When they looked up at it in unison, a shirtless, eyebrow-less, toned man with a long, blue mist hitae-ate stood atop the handle with his back to them.

"Yo," the man said as a weak and disrespectful greeting.

"Zabuza," Kakashi muttered. "The Demon of the Mist."

"Ah, so glad to see you know me, Kakashi of the Kaleidoscope Eye," he quipped back.

"Stay back and protect Zabuza!" Kakashi ordered his students.

"But a ninja's true strength is teamwork, Kakashi, you taught us that," Naruto yelled back about to advance.

"With an enemy of this caliber you need to stay back and let me work, that's the kind of teamwork this situation requires," he countered.

"But-" Naruto tried.

"No, delta formation. NOW!" Kakashi barked.

They stepped quickly into formation all drawing weapons: Naruto in front and Sakura and Sasuke on left and right respectively. Kakashi raised his hand to his headband as soon as his students had stepped into position.

"Oh? I get to see the sharingan so soon?" Zabuza taunted. "Certainly an honor."

"Not that it matters, you're still going to die, but why are you after the old man?" Kakashi inquired.

"I was paid well," Zabuza responded. "Why do you risk your life daily for your village? For the money and the thrill."

"No, not for those reasons. Chatter time is over," Kakashi raised his headband and revealed his sharingan, training it onto Zabuza.

Zabuza smiled and kicked off the tree, grabbing and wrenching his sword as he soared. He put the sword on his shoulder and beckoned to Kakashi to come at him. Zabuza's grin was visible under his bandages. Kakashi, though he knew it was horrible strategy sprinted full speed at Zabuza. Zabuza laughed as he summoned water clones around Kakashi. Kakashi drove his knee through the one in front of him and simply jumped twisted and embedded shuriken in the chests of the others. As Kakashi neared, Zabuza raised his sword and swung horizontally. Kakashi jumped over it and attempted a stab at Zabuza, only to be kicked away as Zabuza recycled his inertia into a kick.

Sasuke's thoughts were whirling around in his head, all of them about this shirtless man and his oversized sword. _Not only is he strong, he has amazing taijutsu._ Naruto read Sasuke's mind and spoke it aloud.

"To create that much torque…" he mumbled slowly. "We wouldn't stand a chance."

Sasuke and Sakura just nodded dumbly. Tazuna was dumbstruck beyond all thought.

Kakashi flew into the trees from Zabuza's kick. He caught himself on a branch as soon as the foliage concealed him. He started to slink back to the beginning of the edge of the foliage as a thick fog developed around him.

"Oh shit," Kakashi muttered as he turned and sprinted to the kids and the old man.

He felt Zabuza before he saw him through the fog: he was in the middle of the group. To Kakashi's great surprise, the moment he was about to strike the back of Zabuza's head, Zabuza dissipated into water. Naruto's right hand kunai was where the kidney of the water clone was. Zabuza was in front of Naruto bearing his sword down to his head. Naruto's only reaction was to weakly put his twin kunai above his head. Naruto would have been split into a bloody mush of bone and blood had not Kakashi kicked the sword aside and stabbed Zabuza's neck dissipating him to a puddle.

Kakashi lunged out and exchanged blows with Zabuza. They sent thrusts that were countered, counters that were parried, fists that were blocked and slashes that were deflected. This quick madness ended with Kakashi behind with a kunai at the bandaged throat.

"Check," Kakashi said darkly.

"Not quite," Another Zabuza said from behind.

He slashed through Kakashi who bled water and popped like a bubble.

"Give up," Kakashi said again behind Zabuza.

"Why?" Zabuza retorted.

Another mizu bunshin dove out at Kakashi from the mist. It forced Kakashi to slash at it. Zabuza slashed horizontally with this freedom. He cut through his own bunshin. Kakashi could only duck under it leaning to his right. Zabuza quickly rotated, switching his hands on his hilt. Kakashi raised his forearms in a cross. A strong block on poor ground, Zabuza's kick was blocked but Kakashi still was sent soaring into the lake.

_Dammit, I need to finish this quickly,_ Kakashi thought as he recovered from the kick. The water was clinging to him much more than any water had a right to: it slowly slid from his hair and dripped like a semi-liquid gel from his silver tips.

_What's with this water?_ Kakashi thought slowly. Then he suddenly realized what it was, but he was too late for Zabuza was already behind him with hands blurring.

An almost perfect sphere of water engulfed Kakashi, Zabuza had his right forearm and hand in the sphere trapping the Konoha jounin. The kiri-nin thought he had won without a doubt.

"Team 7, run!" Kakashi yelled. "Keep the old man safe and get moving."

Zabuza performed a half seal and created a mizu-bunshin that stood watching the children. Sakura could not move no matter how hard she wanted to just turn and run. Sasuke kept his eyes trained on the fight and kept resisting the nervous twitches to run. Naruto stepped back once and pushed Tazuna back with his shoulder. He looked up to Tazuna's face. The old man was terrified and he quickly noticed the little blonde was also afraid. Naruto looked at Tazuna long and hard and then turned back to the clone.

"Sorry, sensei, but we finish this now," Naruto said as he approached the clone.

"No! Run! If he wants to keep me here he has to stay here, too," Kakashi yelled. "He can only control the clone so far from his body."

"We can't outrun him even if it is only a clone," Naruto retorted.

"The kid is smart to realize that, eh, Kakashi?" Zabuza taunted looking at his trapped enemy. "He realizes the inevitability of his demise."

"My demise is ineb… it… a-gle, but it is not at your hands and not now," Naruto tried to repeat Zabuza but failed in repeating the unknown word. Sasuke and Sakura had a small chuckle at Naruto's lack of vocabulary.

"Hahah," the clone laughed. "Brave, but foolish."

Naruto charged the clone wordlessly. The clone smiled and grabbed his sword. Naruto grabbed two kunai from his pouch. The clone swung his sword down for Naruto's head and he should have split Naruto in two but instead the boy's kunai swatted the blade aside to bury itself deep in the dirt. Naruto started to slash at the clone but was backhanded four feet back.

"Fine," Naruto called out and performed a single hand-seal. Twelve clones of himself popped into existence around him. The mizu-bunshin was surrounded by the kage bunshins.

"One, two," Zabuza's clone called out the seconds the clones lasted. Only one Naruto was able to recoil out of the area.

"Sasuke!" the last Naruto called as he threw a windmill shuriken to Sasuke.

_What? This thing doesn't feel right._ Sasuke looked to Naruto who just nodded and mouthed "real one." Sasuke knew what he meant instantly and slapped his own windmill shuriken on the other.

Naruto made two clones and sprinted at the water clone while Sasuke prepared to throw his shuriken. The Naruto's all dodged, two over the sword and one dove under it, the mizu-clone used his inertia to kick a Naruto and to be blocked by another Naruto. The Naruto who dove under the sword swiped off a leg with a kunai and the one who blocked the kick kicked through the shoulder and chest of the clone dispelling it. As soon as Sasuke knew the clone was doomed he leapt up and threw his shuriken at the original Zabuza.

"Foolish," he said as he simply grabbed the shuriken, only to be shocked as there was another one chopping above the water chopping for his ankles. He could only pull his legs up sharply, to let it skit under him. He heard a single pop behind him.

_Yes,_ Sasuke yelled in his mind as he saw that the plan worked. Sakura was just dumbfounded that they had come up with this plan without words.

Naruto popped out of his henge and turned midair to throw his kunai at Zabuza's heart.

The pop brought Zabuza's awe-struck eyes behind him in time to see the shuriken and move his body out of its path but he could not avoid it entirely as it heavily slashed his right side.

"You, bastard!" Zabuza roared as he took windmill in his hand to throw it at Naruto only to have Kakashi's hand stop his movement. Zabuza could only look at Kakashi startedly.

"Yeah, about the killing of my students," Kakashi said as he shot a bloody hand across Zabuza's face.

Zabuza was so startled by this all that he nearly lost his control to fall through the water. Kakashi took this advantage sending an uppercut to his jaw and spinning into a horseshoe kick to his gut. The kick sent Zabuza into a tree with an audible crack and the loosening of many leaves. These leaves provided the perfect ambience for Kakashi when he appeared in a swirl of leaves twenty feet away to finish the man.

"How did you escape?" Zabuza asked lowly and softly.

"I didn't, you let go of the jutsu in your shock," Kakashi replied as he watched the man in front of him, bereft of his dignity.

"Clever kid," Zabuza said.

"Yeah, he is," Kakashi muttered as he started his approach.

Kakashi approached him slowly. When he was fifteen feet, away several senbon flew into his neck causing him to recoil and slump completely down to the ground and his back against the tree.

A masked man in green with a red sash dropped in front of Zabuza.

"I'm sorry, Kakashi-san," the nin said. "But I cannot allow you this body. I have tracked him too far and wide to let him escape now."

_How old is this kid?_ Kakashi thought staring intently at him.

The nin picked up the corpse and began teleporting away.

"Goodbye, Kaka-" the nin had to dodge a few shuriken thrown at his head, he hurried his jutsu along and swirled away.

"Naruto!" Kakashi yelled.

Naruto ran up next to his sensei.

"Dammit, Kakashi, he was lying!" Naruto yelled at his sensei peering up into his face.

"How did you gather that?" Kakashi asked truly curious.

"Well…" Naruto started. "I have only one fact: hunter nins must burn their targets upon acquisition. Other than that I only have what I feel and I feel she was lying through her teeth."

"Hmmmm, well," Kakashi said as he suddenly keeled over onto Naruto.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto cried as he caught the man.

"Gahhh," Kakashi sighed. "Chakra over-exertion."

"Can you walk or do I need to carry you?" Naruto said with a wicked smile.

"Can Sakura carry me?" he replied with another smile.

Naruto rolled his eyes and flung his teacher onto his back.

"Ow, be more gentle," Kakashi whined.

"I could give you to Sasuke to carry," Naruto said as he started walking to the group.

"I'll behave," Kakashi said as he felt a chill run down his spine. Kakashi did not know which he feared more: the fight with Zabuza or being carried by Sasuke, he already questioned the boy's orientation.

Naruto smiled as he arrived at the group, he gave a short explanation as to what happened to Kakashi, and then they were lead to Tazuna's home. Only Naruto and Kakashi were aware of the danger that still remained in their very near future.


	10. Quiet Night

The next day Kakashi could walk,

Kakashi was bedridden that night, had the fight lasted another two minutes he could have killed himself from overexertion. He almost enjoyed this time he was given to catch up on his favorite book, would it not have been for Naruto's constant teasing about his carelessness.

"Kakashi, B+ rank opponent, former ANBU officer, currently an active Elite Jounin," Naruto read off from his bingo book. "Techniques: sharingan, chidori, summoner of little poochies." He snapped the book closed. "Brought down _after_ a fight by chakra over-exertion."

"It does not say 'summoner of little poochies' in there," Kakashi drawled petulantly at Naruto.

Naruto only smiled and poked Kakashi's forehead.

"For being a jounin, an elite jounin no less, you don't manage your energies very well," Naruto said in a quieter but just as sarcastic tone. "Need to go back to the Academy for training?"

"That, Naruto Namikaze, is not funny," Kakashi said petulantly.

"You know, I'm good friends with a few teachers down there, I bet I could score you some advanced classes," Naruto continued.

Kakashi grabbed Naruto's shirt only to have Naruto bat away his hand easily.

"That, Kakashi-sama, is why I am teasing you," Naruto said softly. "If I can bat away your hand, Zabuza-teme could do much, much worse. We need you to recover quickly, so rest up and start acting your age. After all, we can't handle Zabuza even as a team."

Naruto stood and turned for the door.

"Your students need to improve, get well enough to instruct by tomorrow," Naruto added as he bent for Kakashi's pack and rummaged through it. "Which means no late night reading." He left the room with Kakashi's favorite book.

"Hey, that's just unnecessary!" Kakashi called out to Naruto who ignored him and walked out with the book in tow. Kakashi lay back onto his bed, defeated by a twelve year old.

"Way too sharp for such a green kid," Kakashi mumbled. "But he knows what needs to be done and he does it. You're just like your father kid, no doubt about that."

He opened his eyes and stared up, he did not see the ceiling though his eyes were cast upon it: what he saw was far away both in time and geography. He saw a time twelve years before. He saw his teacher. He saw his teacher's glowing wife. He saw a small blonde babe with glowing blue eyes. He saw the picture of happiness and the perfect mold for both skill and intelligence.

Later, Naruto stepped outside at what he figured to be midnight for some exercise. He placed five scrolls around him and one by one released practice dummies from them. He secured the dummies to the ground and stood in the center with closed eyes. He opened them and jabbed the one in front of him hard, denting and crunching the bamboo-like material. He turned and elbowed the one at his five o'clock. He continued practicing and pushed himself harder and faster until he was simply pummeling the dummies, snapping and cracking them into splinters.

After a couple of minutes, he sensed someone come to watch. He stopped after putting another dent in a dummy and turned to see Tazuna's grandchild, Inari, standing and watching him. Unsure of what to do as Naruto had already had a bad first encounter with this child, Naruto tried for a simple conversation

"Hey, kid, why are you up so late?"

"I'm up because I couldn't sleep, so I figured I'd watch the idiot out preparing to die," he said sulkily.

"Eh? Who's out preparing to die?" Naruto chirped looking and turning.

"You know you can't win, so why are you trying?"

"We can win, and even if we couldn't, what good would it do to turn tail and leave things as they are?"

"You'd still be alive at least."

"But how much longer will this village, this whole country live if we don't win? If we don't try?" Naruto returned.

"Why waste your life trying to be a hero? Heroes always end up dead!" he yelled with tears at the edge of his eyes.

Naruto looked at him and walked towards him.

"Stay back, you loser," Inari yelled which stopped Naruto five feet away.

Naruto crouched onto his haunches and stared into the boy's eyes, his face neutral but his eyes blazing.

"I know what happened to your dad, the same almost happened to my dad, it would have happened were it not-"

"Shut up! You're nothing like me!" Inari interrupted again.

"Let me finish," Naruto growled lowly. Inari fell back onto his hind end and just stared wide-eyed at Naruto.

"Good, now, my dad would have died saving my village from the Kyuubi by sealing it away," Naruto started.

**Are you not going to tell him the truth?** the familiar voice rumbled in his mind.

_Later, fox, _Naruto replied silently.

"But his predecessor," Naruto continued, "Sandaime Sarutobi, took his place and performed the sealing in his stead. This heroic sacrifice allowed me to keep my father. But a couple years later my mother was killed in an assassination attempt, in front of me. But she fought, despite having barely the strength in her ankles to walk, she fought this assassin long enough for my father to arrive. If she hadn't even tried, I would be dead and likely my father would have committed seppuku. According to your philosophy, she should have rolled over and died without a fight, killing both me and my father."

"If we fight, if we try then we could possibly give this country enough of a chance to last until help arrives that can win. If we fight, we could overthrow this tyrant. If we fight, we at least die with our boots on and our heads held high. Your father recognized that, why have you thrown away his ideals? Did you reject those along with the rest of this cowardly country?"

"You didn't see what they did to him," he had started crying. "You don't know what that does to you."

"I saw my mother murdered when I was barely old enough to play ninja, I saw her stabbed through the heart. I know what the pain of loss is," Naruto said softly. "Believe in us, we all have our scars. Every person does. You just need… you need to carry them and continue on as strong as you can. It's all anyone can do."

Naruto stood and picked up the sobbing boy, then walked inside.

"Come on, no crying," was Naruto's weak attempt to sooth. "You've been doing that your whole life, it's time for something new."

By the time Naruto had reached Inari's room, the boy was asleep. He laid the child down and stared for a second before leaving. He walked outside again to the cool air and leapt to the roof. He performed about twenty hand seals and closed his eyes. A very tall man of a stout but agile build in black battle dress with orange plating appeared in front of him. Naruto barely noticed it anymore but the figure had a slight glow and translucence to his figure, which made him seem even more demonic or divine given the nine bushy tails behind him.

"So why didn't you come out with the truth up front like usual?" Kyuubi began. "Every other time you've told the story, even if only in part, you came right out with it."

"I've told it once before, and they were not one for talking anyway," Naruto responded only now noticing how juvenile his voice sounded to the resoundingly deep voice of the demon in front of him. "Besides, you saw what I saw, he doesn't need to know there's a demon in his home right now, no one needs to know that."

"I suppose, you weak hearted humans would worry about that sort of event," Kyuubi drawled.

Naruto shrugged and dispelled the jutsu.

**Are we done so soon? **Kyuubi asked.

"It is well after midnight, and this weak human needs sleep," Naruto responded aloud.

**Night, night kit**, Kyuubi said and withdrew his presence.

Naruto sighed and slipped back into the house and stumbled for his cot. Once he found it he laid down on his stomach and slid his arms under his pillow and closed his eyes to exhausted and drained sleep.


	11. Quiet Night pt 2

The morning came to a quiet house

The morning came to a quiet house. The sunshine breaking through his window awoke Kakashi who simply rolled the other way and went back to sleep. Sakura awoke to the sun as but she instead got up and went to the bathroom and got cleaned up for the day. Sasuke rolled over and went outside after Sakura left the room: it was too early to deal with her in his mind. Naruto woke shortly after the room was empty and rolled to simply stare at the ceiling. The resident family's rooms were all on the west side of the house so they were not awakened by this event though it was not long until they too were up.

After the meager but delicious meal the ninja gathered outside in the forest. The clearing they were in was oddly round with two clear-cut paths to it.

"Get used to these trees," Kakashi said. "These trees are going to be all you see today."

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked truly puzzled and worried.

"I don't like that tone," Naruto said with a petulant expression. He knew that whatever was about to happen, he was not going to enjoy it.

"I mean, Sakura, that you be within these trees the vast majority of the day. We're doing some training and all you will be allowed to do involves this clearing and these here trees," Kakashi said as he patted the nearest one to him.

"What can we possibly to do train with trees?" Sasuke chimed in with a prideful tone.

_Those words are the harbinger of our misery_, Naruto thought annoyedly.

"Well, Sasuke, since you piped up so well, after I demonstrate our training exercise, we get to watch you go first," Kakashi said and everyone caught his intent of mischief.

_Or maybe just his?_ Naruto thought with hope.

Kakashi slowly gimped over to the tree and walked up its trunk. The students were looking on in amazed, annoyed or angered fashions.

"There, that's all there is to it. Now, Sasuke, it's your turn," Kakashi said with arms crossed looking down at them.

"Aren't you going to tell me how to-" he started.

"Nope, you're so high and mighty why don't you show me," Kakashi taunted.

With an annoyed noise Sasuke charged a tree. He got one foot on with some grip but as he was about to put his other foot past his knee the tree bark shattered around his foot and propelled him back to his starting point. On his head that is.

"Ow, what the hell you damn teacher?" Sasuke yelled up angrily as he shot to a sitting position.

"Naruto, one lump for Sasuke," Kakashi said as he started down the tree.

"Sure," Naruto said as he smacked Sasuke on his head.

"OW! What was that for?!" he growled looking to teacher and his supposed comrade who just crossed his arms and looked off into the trees.

"You shouldn't hit Sasuke!" Sakura yelled protectively.

"I told him to, fan girl, so he has the right of way," Kakashi said as he reached the ground. "Sasuke, you need to stop being so prideful and actually try to work with your teammates in more than just life and death situations. Sakura, Sasuke's a ninja he's going to take a beating at some point, when that happens, what will you do? You need to care about more than just Sasuke, start caring for Naruto. Naruto, you need to start trying to work with your team more, too. You know what's going on most of the time, try and help them know what's going on." When Kakashi finished, he took a big breath as if he didn't breath that whole time.

The three all looked to the dirt in embarrassment.

_But they're just holding me back, aren't they?_ Sasuke thought.

Naruto, why would he need my attention? Sakura inquired openly of herself.

I don't know what's going on even half the time, besides, what reason do they have to listen to me? Naruto thought.

"Now that I've berated everyone, here's how to do this: you gather a small amount of chakra into your feet and walk, it's that simple. The trick is finding the right amount, as Sasuke discovered, too much will cause the tree to push against you. Hard. But, on the other end of this scale, too little will cause you to not stick. Good luck, and ask each other questions, you all know more than you think," Kakashi strolled to a tree and sat. He saw all three ninja just looking at him.

"What are you waiting for? An invitation? Go!" he spoke louder than usual.

As he finished the three all ran at separate trees. Sasuke ran several steps up before he had to back flip off a tree. Naruto stopped before the tree and put a foot to it and looked up the trunk. He was adding and subtracting chakra to see how much he needed, but nothing seemed to make him stick. A voice called out to them all as Sasuke fell off for the fourth time, and Naruto still on the ground gauging.

Sakura sat atop a branch smiling.

"Well, she wins the award for best chakra control in the team," Kakashi said softly.

"What do I win?" Sakura said almost falling off with excitement.

"A thumbs up," Kakashi said as he did so without looking up to her. Sakura slumped with disappointment.

Naruto splurted out with laughter and his foot slipped off the tree as his focus went out the window. Sasuke fought and won to keep his inner smile and giggle off his face.

The day continued quietly as Sakura did laps up and down the tree via Kakashi's advice or command, Sasuke simply charged up as fast as he could as many times as he could trying to get higher and Naruto started to walk up the tree slowly and stood trying to memorize how much chakra he needed to put in his feet.

**Why not just charge up the tree repeatedly? Learn like the moody raven?** the Kyuubi rang out in Naruto's mind.

Excuse me if I think this a bit more exact and will yield faster results, Naruto shot back. Besides, we both know I would only look like a fool with you screwing with my control all the time.

**Not my fault you have both our chakras in your system at once, well, it is actually**, the fox echoed in Naruto's mind. ** But I'm not removing my chakra, the benefits outweigh the cost.**

If you insist, but is there no way to make them work together or at least decrease the ill effects?

**There could be, but it would be up to you to find the way,** Kyuubi said deep in his own thoughts.

Fine then, don't aid me with your eons of wisdom gathering existence, Naruto muttered as he closed the mental link to his demon lord turned parasite.

He looked up the tree and, feeling confident, he started to walk up and picked up speed until he was sprinting up the tree. He turned, looked up the tree and ran to the top. He stood atop the tree and looked around: appreciating the simple beauty of the surrounding forest. He turned back around and decided to try something that had just popped into his scattered brain. He slowly pulled chakra out of his feet and braced himself accordingly as he let himself slide down the tree. He forgot to slow himself before he reached the bottom so he reflexively jumped off the tree and rolled. Into another tree trunk.

The other ninja had been looking at him with impressed stares until that moment.

"Nice job, Naruto," Kakashi said sarcastically. "Nothing less than expected from an elite clan member such as yourself."

"I bet you've never done something so cool," Naruto said as he rolled and stared at his teacher.

"No, that was foolish," Kakashi corrected.

Naruto snorted and climbed up the tree. All three ninjas trained on this for the remainder of the day. At the end, only Naruto and Sakura could do it on command. Sasuke could only climb for about twenty feet up before falling.

They left their small alcove and headed for Tazuna's house for dinner. Everyone ate normally except Sasuke who ate so fast he put it back on the floor once. After dinner, Sasuke left the house to train.

Sakura sighed staring out the window in the direction that Sasuke ran off in. Naruto grinned wickedly and moved behind her without attracting her attention.

"What are you doing, Sakura?" he spoke like Kakashi as best he could.

"Waiting for Sasuke," she replied half-there.

"Why?" he continued almost slipping out of his disguise.

"So I can show him how-" she stopped and turned to see Naruto leaning over her standing on a chair for height.

"How what?" Naruto broke into a full smile then fell over with laughter.

"This is why you will be single for your whole life," she said as she stormed out of the room.

"Sasuke is why you will be single your whole life," Naruto shot back as he lay sprawled on his back on the floor.

That stopped Sakura at the doorframe.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she said with attempted 12 year-old venom.

"What are you blind?" Naruto said as he looked up to her. "Sasuke has so many girls following his tragic air yet he hasn't even responded to one of them?"

"Maybe he hasn't found anyone he likes," she tried to defend him.

"Point one: it's more likely he doesn't want a girl, only his silly revenge. Point two: that means he doesn't like you," Naruto said ticking his points on his hand.

"Well, maybe if I keep trying to prove myself to him he will-"

"He will keep ignoring you as you are the same as every other girl after him. start being original and he may just take notice."

Sakura stormed out in a huff leaving Naruto on the floor. Her mind was flying about.

What the hell does he know? He doesn't know Sasuke, he doesn't even like Sasuke! What makes him an expert on how Sasuke will behave? He has no idea!

Her thoughts raved for several more minutes as she reached her temporary room.

But, isn't what he said right? Sasuke never pays attention to any girl, other than to tell her to go away. But he'll pay attention to me, I'm much different and better than those other girls.

She sat and stared at the floor, unsure of her previous statement.

I have to be better than those girls, I'm not so annoying to him. that's right, he doesn't tell me to go away. I'm good then, I just need to keep trying.

She went to bed that night sure of her chances. Naruto spent his evening practicing in his room quietly. He discovered standing on the ceiling was rather entertaining as was following spiders along walls. Sasuke came home late night after training himself into the ground to grasp this idea. Kakashi spent his clueless to the developments of his students.


	12. Prelude to Confrontation

The next day went by smoothly with the whole team watching the bridge's construction

The next day went by smoothly with the whole team watching the bridge's construction. Naruto and Sasuke were told to help builders by moving along materials as the bridge needed.

Sasuke was not enjoying the work as he felt that it was both below his status and ridiculously difficult. Naruto was enjoying the ridiculous amount of running he was doing with wood and concrete mix on his shoulders.

Sakura was receiving special attention from Kakashi. She was doing a special exercise specifically designed to help someone with her kind of weakness: extremely low chakra reserves.

"You see, Sakura, you need to raise your reserves, and like any other kind of training, be it strength or endurance or speed, the easiest way to gain ability, is to work at the edge of control and your limits."

Sakura simply nodded with a resolute expression.

"So, how does this exercise go again?" Kakashi asked.

"I am to keep as much chakra as possible either flowing through me or in a focused area," she said as if the application was simple. To this, Kakashi smiled under his mask.

"Then get to it, I'm going to go help the boys. Keep that exercise up all day," he turned and walked to the boys as he spoke.

She first decided to try and hold a seal with all of her chakra only to find the pain that that caused lasted a long while. She found it less painful to continue to cycle as much of her chakra as she could through her whole body. This, she found, required a great deal of concentration and focus at first but as she continued to keep her focus up it became easier for her to keep up the flow. Finally, after a few hours of focus, she no longer needed to think about the flow.

The boys stopped with the rest of the men for their noon lunch break. They continued after an hour of rest, but they worked at a slower pace as the men tended to overeat.

_A half hour and all's well_, Sakura noted. _More accurately: all's bored._

Right on cue, a worker not fifty feet from her dropped the large steel pipe from his shoulder. It landed on one end and, tilting around its new base, continued its path: right onto a surveyor's unsuspecting head. Sakura shot up and sprinted as fast as she could to stop the pipe from falling on the man's head. The pole seemed to slow in its path as she ran. She got there and threw her hands up to catch it and squeezed her eyes closed.

Only the pipe never struck her hands.

She opened her eyes to see Naruto holding the bar from hitting her, his hand shaking and a fifty pound bag of cement mix on his other shoulder. It was then she noticed an iron death-grip on the back of her shirt.

She turned to see Sasuke standing behind her with one hand almost ripping her shirt in his grip and the other hand on the surveyor who had turned to see and slightly pale with the startling sight of a ten foot pole falling to him.

"Let's move so he can set that down," Sasuke said as he pushed both people gently but firmly.

As soon as they were out of the way Naruto let the pole fall as it had planned to but without its intended victims. Everyone noticed the new bend the pole had, but not that the bend began at a shallow handprint, except Kakashi and Naruto.

"H-h-how did you guys get there so fast?" the very confused surveyor stuttered out.

"We're ninja," Naruto said simply. "Therefore you should expect the amazing and accept it as an everyday thing with us."

Everyone rolled their eyes at his comment.

_Good grief, just like Sensei,_ Kakashi thought exasperatedly.

"They apparently copied the exercise I gave Sakura, but I didn't tell any of them one of the major side effects it has: increased physical performance."

The surveyor only looked between the ninja even more perplexed than before, but dismissed it and decided to take Naruto's explanation.

"I think he liked mine better," Naruto said looking to Kakashi.

"But really, how could you guys get there so much faster than I did?" Sakura inquired interestedly.

"The fact remains, Sakura, you have the least chakra capacity and thereby the smallest chakra paths. That means you can carry the least amount of chakra in your body. The increase is almost directly related to the amount of chakra you have in any given muscle group, so more chakra in your arm, the harder you hit. But you are still limited by your actual muscle and normal ability. Naruto and Sasuke have more capacity and much larger pathways. In Naruto's case, his has more than five times your capacity and almost three times Sasuke's. A major difference is made, however, in that Naruto's chakra control is absolutely horrendous," Kakashi said in a lazy drawl.

Naruto glared at him for that last remark.

"But I bet you made it there first, didn't you Sasuke?" Sakura inquisited chirpily.

"No, I didn't," Sasuke said simply. "Naruto did, that's the reason I was behind you and the man, if he dropped it I could still throw you two out of the way."

Sakura looked with both shock and respect at Naruto.

"Don't feel bad though, Sasuke, he only made it because he has larger chakra reserves than anyone on this bridge," Kakashi said waving his hand nonchalantly.

"Mine are bigger than yours?" Naruto said with pure shock.

"Yes, you have about one hundred fifty percent my capacity," Kakashi said and before anyone could get too excited. "We've dallied long enough, Sakura back to training, boys back to work."

The rest of the day went smoothly. They walked home in relative peace and happiness until Naruto posed a question that had been eating at him all day long.

"When do we expect the eyebrow-less freak to show up again?"

"Hmmm, how long has it been since we saw him? two days? About five more of relative safety, but by then he should have recovered from the death-coma he was put into by his partner," Kakashi said then looked around suspiciously. "Though I feel a rather large chakra around here somewhere."

"Can't pinpoint it?" Naruto and Sasuke said in unison.

"Whoever they are, they aren't using chakra for anything, so no, although," he turned to Sakura. "Stop your chakra flow, now."

She complied and seemed to loose all her strength. She would have fallen had Tazuna not caught her and helped her walk.

"Always easier to sense someone when they are actively molding or controlling their chakra. Sasuke, carry Sakura, Tazuna, it's piggy back time, we're getting home now. I don't want a confrontation with two-thirds of my squad tired and the other third almost passed out. Naruto, cover our rear, you are the least tired of us and you can't carry the old man, but no heroics. Stall them then lose them if this comes to anything."

"Roger," Naruto said and threw up a carefree, but honest, salute.

"Good, move out," Kakashi turned and ran as Tazuna jumped onto his back, Sasuke fumbled Sakura onto his back and hurried after.

"Sasuke, no chakra," Kakashi whispered back to his wingman.

"Right," was the hushed response.

The two disappeared around a bend as Naruto started to run after them he felt the presence move quickly to follow him. It was a strange sensation sensing another ninja following him with only their chakra to feel. Like a tingling outside of your skin, you feel where they are before you can sense them with any other sense. Naruto had never felt it before, and he had never tried. But he couldn't worry about that now, he tried to outrun the following figure, only to have them gain ground on him. He stopped at another bend and turned to face them. He stood loose as a small, effeminate figure approached him from the tree cover.

"How can you sense me?" she asked.

"How do you know that's what gave you away?" Naruto returned.

"Kakashi-san is rather adept at tracking, which governed how I reacted. I heard him from the bushes say that he sensed me."

This sent a chill down Naruto's spine. _So close…_

"You can still run you know," she said looking in the direction of Naruto's teammates.

He noticed this and placed himself between her and them.

Then the wind changed and blew across his face.

**A man?** The ever-familiar voice rang out from within his skull.

"We won't run," Naruto said. _Are you sure?_

**You doubt my nose?**

_Not really, just checking._

"Why fight though? You owe the man no loyalty. Zabuza is only after Tazuna, run and leave him, and he will be the only one to die."

"Because of what he is doing: ensuring the livelihood of those he loves. We have to make sure that this happens: this bridge gets built. Besides, the man who hired you is lower than scum, he is starving this whole country, why obey him? Why follow his orders?"

"Because we were hired to, Zabuza needs the money for his dream."

"What is his dream? Is it worth dieing for? Is it worth killing this whole country for?"

"You'll have to ask him that," the boy turned and walked to the trees behind him. "My name is Haku by the way. May I ask yours?"

"Naruto. Naruto Namikaze," Naruto said cautiously.

The boy turned fully to face him.

They stood with eyes locked for several seconds. Naruto felt like it was a year. Then suddenly Haku turned and ran into the woods.

Naruto watched the retreating figure well after he had disappeared. After several minutes, Naruto then turned and ran to Tazuna's home. He did not sprint yet he wasn't at a jogging pace either. His mind overflowed with questions that a rather large voice answered immediately.

_Was he honest with me? _

He didn't tell all he knows.

_How much can I trust what he said then?_

**As far as you could throw him, which is about twenty feet if I help.**

_Not helpful, how big of a threat is he really?_

**Big if you let him be, but you're strong enough. I think. **

The Kyuubi added to himself, _**If I help you along.**_

_Anything I can do to prepare?_

**Keep training as you are.**

Oh, no. I gave him my full name…

**That could be good or bad, tell the hunter.**

_I hope sensei won't get mad at me…_

Naruto rounded the corner to Tazuna's house.

_I really hope it ends up being good…_


	13. Quick and Bloody

The bridge was calm in the morning. It had been a week since the first fight with Zabuza, the team had been on high alert since the encounter Naruto had with Zabuza's sidekick. Kakashi had decided that because of the likelihood of Zabuza's demise by the end of this mission that Naruto's identity being given out was of little import.

A single cry came across the whole bridge. All eyes on the bridge turned and focused on the source: a blonde head.

"Dammit! Why won't something just happen already!" Naruto yelled as he paced with nervousness.

"Naruto, asking for trouble like that only eggs on disaster," Kakashi warned his pupil.

"I know it does, but this sitting here is killing me," he whined back.

"Keep complaining and that won't be the only thing," his teacher quipped back.

Naruto grudgingly quieted down and went to help out some men who were carrying cement mix. Sasuke sat quietly on a stack of large crates watching over the men working while Sakura sat below him on a smaller crate looking up at him and back at the workers and back again. Kakashi walked around reading his book and glancing around to the gathered workers. Tazuna's voice was suddenly pleading, giving each of the ninja's attention to him.

"But, Genshin, we need you on this bridge and it's so close to being complete. Why leave now of all times? Please, just another week?" Tazuna pleaded with the man.

"No, not this time. This constant danger of death is ripping my family apart. Even my oblivious daughter can sense the strain between me and my wife. I'm sorry, Tazuna, but I can't continue this any more," Genshin said as he turned to leave the bridge.

Tazuna lowered his pleading arms and bent his head to the ground. Naruto walked around to the old man's face to see his brows furrowed into one wrinkled disaster. Naruto shifted the bag of cement in his folded arms and looked at the same piece of ground.

"He's not the first is he?" Naruto said.

"No, he's the third," Tazuna muttered softly. "Third one today."

Tazuna suddenly perked up.

"But we can't let that get us do-" as Tazuna said this a deep dark voice rang out from the mist that suddenly accumulated everywhere.

"Hello, again."

Before the mist made Tazuna completely blind he saw all of his workers slashed in half or riddled with needles. Tazuna collapsed to his knees. Naruto saw one of the mizu bunshins to his right about to slash Zabuza in half. Using the only implement he had, he threw the bag of cement into its face dispersing it. Then he saw the second bunshin to his left and used Tazuna as a high beam, he vaulted over the man's shoulders and drop kicked the bunshin square in the chest.

Naruto hopped back to his feet as fast as he could and grabbed the back of Tazuna's shirt and threw the man back to where he knew Sakura and Sasuke were. Naruto slashed through several bunshins as he ran after the sliding old man.

Sasuke and Sakura were surprised to see Tazuna sliding on his back to their feet, what surprised the more was that he was unharmed.

"Sakura, keep him safe, I'm going to go help Naruto or Kakashi," Sasuke said as Naruto ran up after Tazuna.

"Since I'm here let's go help Kakashi, Sasuke," Naruto said with furrowed brow.

With a simple nod, both boys ran back into the mist. Sakura found herself pushing Tazuna against the crates and looking to the retreating backs, hoping they both would come back safe.

Kakashi stood after dodging several slashes at his intestines and brains, only having one score across his chest.

"So, we meet again, Kakashi," Zabuza taunted.

"Indeed," Kakashi said as he exposed his sharingan.

"Aren't we going to have a nice conversation?"

"I don't talk to dead men," Kakashi lied.

Zabuza smirked and charged straight for Kakashi.

The boys slide to a stop and eyed Zabuza's partner as he stood and readied his senbon.

"I cannot let you interrupt Zabuza's fight," he said and raised his senbon to his face.

"Then we'll go through you," Naruto said. "And rip his eyebrow-less face off."

Haku visibly flinched when Naruto said that.

"That you will not do," Haku walked forward and stood not four feet from the boys.

Naruto smirked and threw one straight jab to Haku's face. The boy dodged to the right of the punch and sent his left foot at Naruto's side but Naruto caught it and used it to throw the boy back. Haku created an ice mirror behind himself and retreated into it.

"What the he-" Naruto started before he had to block a lunging kick from Haku. Naruto threw his arms back pushing Haku away from him, unfortunately, throwing his arms out pushed himself backwards onto the ice Haku had made on the ground behind him, sending him sliding and careening off the bridge and into the water below.

"Shit," Sasuke yelled as he watched Naruto fly over the edge.

Haku lunged at Sasuke and exchanged several slashes and kicks and blocks, their counters were pointless as the counters and counterattacks were only momentary gains. They both only hoped to try and get a quick slash in at a vital or debilitating area. They gained nothing from the knife fight, Sasuke leaped back and let off a fireball. This only helped Haku gain the time needed to surround Sasuke in mirrors. Sasuke looked at them all in horror, he had seen what these mirrors allowed him to do. Sasuke tried his best to dodge the flurry of needles but he could only prevent them from scoring vital areas. He didn't notice that his eyes were blood red and that the dodging was getting easier. He was able to launch a few counter-attacks with the small advances he was gaining.

Naruto landed hard and went deep into the water. He had to swim frantically to the surface, the land had knocked all the air from his lungs. Gasping, he knew he had to reach Sasuke. Haku would tear Sasuke apart if given enough time. Naruto slammed his hands onto the large cement stand and pulled himself up by the gaps in the cement bricks. Drying the soles of his shoes as best he could he applied his chakra and ran up the pole. He sprinted as fast as he could and slipped only twenty feet from the top. Catching himself only a few feet from the water, he returned to his sprint up the pole, which was becoming more and more of a mad scramble.

Kakashi stared into the mist searching for any sign of Zabuza. Then Zabuza appeared with closed eyes and stabbed at him with a small knife catching him in the shoulder then retreated back into his mist.

_Dammit, he's thickened this mist, which means he can't see either_, he thought. _Only thing is he's used to these conditions but I'm not._ _Not in practice at least_.

Zabuza appeared out of the mist and slashed several times at Kakashi as Kakashi deflected and dodged each time.

"Hm hm hm, just as should be expected from the great Kakashi," Zabuza taunted from the mist's safety. "But how long can we keep this up?"

"Not for very long," Kakashi responded, and he continued before Zabuza could respond. "I've got a hot meal coming at twelve."

"Cocky as ever I see," Zabuza prodded. "I'll see if I can wipe that away."

Kakashi truly did not know if he could beat Zabuza by then, but he hoped he could. He had ten minutes.

Even with his Sharingan partially activated, Sasuke could not keep up with Haku's needles. Sasuke could hardly stand, yet he kept glaring daggers back at that eerie mask. Then Haku stepped out of his mirror, Sasuke knew if he had a chance to attack now was it. He threw himself up and charged at Haku. Haku backhanded Sasuke's jaw dropping him right on the spot.

"Why do you-"

"Rrraaaagh!" Naruto roared as he flew into the mirrors and kicked Haku's left kidney, grabbed his chest and threw him out of the mirrors. Naruto followed him out.

"Sasuke! Can you stand?" Naruto yelled back keeping his eyes on the downed Haku.

Sakura had heard the sounds of stabbed flesh and the pained screams of someone, though she couldn't tell whose they were. Then she heard Naruto yelling to Sasuke. She would have run off to him immediately had it not been for Tazuna tethering himself to her hip. He looked to her pleaded face.

"I only have to be with you right?" he held his hand out as he spoke. Sakura appreciatively took it and ran off in the direction she heard Naruto's voice.

Naruto stood with most of his body completely limber, ready to react to anything. What happened he couldn't have reacted to: Haku pushed himself a few inches off the ground and created a mirror beneath himself and dove into it. Naruto turned himself around and started running fast enough to give one whiplash just by watching, but even that wasn't fast enough. The now standing Sasuke was turned into a complete pincushion of frozen needles. Naruto took one look at Sasuke's head and neck and called him dead. Sakura screamed when she saw Sasuke stabbed so many times, in so many vital areas. She was completely frozen in place, no reaction to anything but Sasuke's limp body.

A mirror of ice began to form before Sakura and Tazuna, it gave Haku a straight line to Tazuna's heart. Tazuna watched in horror as the mirror formed. He knew he could do nothing about it, Sakura may have had a chance had she not been completely stunned. As soon as the mirror had finished forming, a darkness immediately took shape in it, but for Tazuna it took several minutes to complete its form to that of Haku. When Haku dove out to stab at Tazuna's heart, his wrist was grabbed and immediately broken by a cast iron grip as hot as lava. Haku looked to the hand to see it holding his own wrist in place in front of its own heart. Then he recognized the figure as Naruto, only he was covered in a red energy too evil to be chakra. Naruto pulled Haku's wrist to his side twisting it down and around more than Haku's body could, dislocating his shoulder and pulling Haku's face down to Naruto's low reaching fist.

Haku's mask cracked as he flew back into and through his own mirror. He bounced twice before rolling for several more feet coming to a stop twenty feet from where he started. Haku slowly stood as his mask crumbled away to dust. Naruto appeared in front of him.

Haku looked at the boy in front of him long and deeply peering into both of their souls. Naruto stood in front of him angry beyond all of hell.

_I don't want to kill you._

_I know._

_Why didn't you just leave?_

_I am his tool, he decided to continue._

_But you are more than just a tool…_

_That is my only purpose now._

_If you come with me, come to Konoha, swear your allegiance and become a leaf nin, we can provide you with a different purpose,_ they spoke without words only expressions and silent beckonings.

"No, that would be the same purpose but for a different master, I will only work for Zabuza," Haku broke their silence. "Now kill me, please."

Kakashi felt the sudden appearance of the Kyuubi's chakra and suddenly felt very nervous for Naruto. Zabuza felt it and opened his eyes suddenly looking to the source.

_No, it hasn't broken, only slipped. Was this what you wanted, sensei?_

_This can't be from Kakashi… can it?_

"Hey, Zabuza, we're both very busy, I need to get to that hot lunch and you need to catch the ferryman, let's say we end this in one final move, eh?" Kakashi said pulling a scroll from its pouch.

"Oh? Think you can end this so quickly do you?" Zabuza taunted back. "You know I am not alone so what will you do about him?"

"Nothing, my subordinates have taken care of him."

Large dogs started ripping up from the earth to grab Zabuza's every limb and hold it down, then one last pit bull like dog grabbed his shoulders with its claws and bit into his collar.

"What the hell?" Zabuza roared out into the mist.

"This is how I'm going to end it," Kakashi said simply as he began three simple hand seals.

"Please, kill me, I am of no more use to Zabuza," Haku pleaded.

"I won't kill you, not like this. You should be begging for your life now, not death," Naruto said sadly.

"If you do not kill me, he will discard me or kill me, neither option is pleasant to me," Haku begged and looked down.

"Not in cold blood, I will mourn your death," Naruto said as he pulled a kunai out and approached Haku. As he was about to stab into Haku's heart Haku grabbed his wrist.

"Wait, I can help my master in one more way," he said as he created a mirror behind himself and tried to get into it. Naruto grabbed at him furiously, he was not letting him interfere with Kakashi.

Kakashi finished charging his Chidori. He marked Zabuza's heart in his mind. He charged the fifty feet between. He thrust at Zabuza's heart. A wrist feebly grabbed his wrist and pulled it a centimeter to the left. It was not enough to save Zabuza. The light faded from his eyes quickly and the hand was pulled back into the ice mirror.

Naruto grabbed Haku's belt and ripped him back through the mirror. He slammed Haku onto his back on the bridge and stabbed his kunai up to the ring into his heart.

"Dammit!" Naruto roared.

Naruto glanced down at the body and turned to walk back to Sasuke. He got there to see Sakura bawling on Sasuke's dead body. Naruto turned his head away from the sight and continued to Tazuna.

"You alright, you old codger?" Naruto mumbled.

"Y-yeah," Tazuna said morosely.

"Good, cuz as soon as this is over," Naruto said calmly before finishing off screaming. "I'm gonna kick your ass all the way across your goddamn bridge!"

Naruto stormed his way through the rapidly thinning mist to Kakashi. He found Kakashi sitting on his feet staring at Zabuza's lifeless and closed eyes. Naruto approached Kakashi and stared at Zabuza.

"Can you ever be prepared for it: the pain of losing a comrade and of killing another human?" Naruto asked his greatest source of wisdom available.

"Your first kill is always hard, no matter what," Kakashi drawled depressed. "You never ever get used to comrades and friends dieing."

"I hate this," Naruto said much to Kakashi's dismay.

"Naruto…"

"I'll get stronger, strong enough to protect those I love," Naruto muttered resolutely to himself though not low enough that Kakashi could not hear it to his glee.

"Well, well, the baby ninja doesn't like his comrades death, huh?" a smooth voice called from across the bridge.

The misfit troupe of hurt souls look to the source to see a small fat man standing behind an army of thugs, all of the thugs were armed with some sort of weapon but their only strength was the number that were present.

"Gato, how nice of you to join us, as you can see I've already dispatched your assassin," Kakashi said in a pleasant tone. "In fact, it was easy enough that I could take on your whole little army."

Naruto was growling beside him.

"Or I could just let him decimate you all," Kakashi said cheerily from his kneeling position. "Decisions, decisions."

"you, this is all your fault, if it weren't for you," Naruto said lowly. "WE WOULD STILL BE A THREE MAN TEAM!"

Naruto charged as the red energy from the depths of hell engulfed his whole body. The armed fools tried to use their simple weapons of steel and iron only to have them broken mid-swing, mid-thrust, by his wildly slashing claws or bounce off his red energy skin. Naruto was slashing through the men as though they were water balloons tossed by children. He made no effort to divert from his target the men in his way were only obstacles to be tossed aside and toss them aside he did. If he did not slash through a man, he batted him aside ten feet into the crowd of idiots in his way. Naruto was the epitome of a berserker, the men in his way would not stop him nor could they. Their combined strength could not have stopped him. Their combined will would not have diverted his path a centimeter on either side. Their courage was completely empty and in its place was only terror in its purest form. The men cleared away from Naruto, they ran out of his way pushing those on the edge of the bridge off and over the edge to the liquid concrete below. The path to Gato was completely clear for ten feet on either side. Naruto went full board and sprinted head on. Gato could only turn slightly to the side before Naruto was on him. It was not enough.

Naruto thrust his hand through Gato's heart and tore his hand down and out of the corpse along the top of the right kidney. With inertia recycled out of instinct, the berserker's heel connected with the already cooling jaw snapping the head back to a broken neck, sending the long dead corpse head over heels into the waiting ocean. No one would mourn the man, no one would know where he lay, a fitting end to an unfit man.

Naruto turned away from the pool of blood he helped create and looked directly at the crowd of armed thugs. He held his gaze for several seconds before every last man started to jump for their boat or dive off into the ocean. After all of them had been cleared out Naruto turned back to his team to see a crowd of villagers behind them. Naruto pulled his head back in shock.

"I-Inari? What are you doing here?" Naruto said in complete confusion.

"You said it yourself, it's much better to die on your feet than to live on your knees," Inari said smiling with a pan on his head.

"well, someone did die on their feet today," Naruto muttered depressedly.

Naruto looked to where Sasuke lay sadly. The spot was empty and only a dark wet spot was there. Naruto glanced around in surprise to see Sasuke leaning on the rail of the bridge carefully removing needles. Naruto rushed over and looked Sasuke over from head to toe. He was standing, he was bleeding slightly, but he was alive. Naruto cracked an uneasy smile as tears formed in his eyes.

"what? what's wrong, Naruto?" Sasuke said weakly.

"I thought you had died," Naruto said smoothly despite how close he was to crying.

"Well, he didn't so stop gawking like that, Naruto!" Sakura chided quite loudly. She was on the other side of Sasuke helping him pull out needles.

Naruto just watched him glad of his life.


	14. Unexpected Guests

A sword the size of a man stood hilt up upon a hill. This sword overlooked the town it tried to destroy not a week before. The town was a small seaside town of a water locked nation. This town was very, very special to the nation, however. On the shore of this town a bridge was being built to the mainland. This bridge was to be a source of great trade with the mainland, affording many traveling merchants cheap access to the nation that had almost drowned in its own waters. Beside this sword, stood a simple cross with a blue scarf around the cross beam and a broken mask at the base. Both objects stood in front of small mounds of fresh earth. Naruto kneeled on his ankles staring between the two graves. He was saying a silent and motionless prayer for both of these lost souls.

"We're ready to go, Naruto," Kakashi said from behind.

Naruto simply and wordlessly rocked onto his feet and turned to walk home with his team.

"Ok, team, here's the deal, if we can make it back to Konoha in under two and a half days, I buy everyone as much ramen as they can eat!" Kakashi said as he watched Naruto's mood skyrocketed.

"Seriously?" Naruto said in disbelief.

"You have got to be kidding, sensei. Ramen? As a reward?" Sasuke said.

"Ok, for you I'll make it yakitori," he said as if raising a bet.

Sasuke's eyes twitched with surprise.

"You're on."

They all sprinted off into the woods happily in chase of their favorite food. In two days time they had all made it to Konoha, only problem for them was that they arrived at four in the morning.

"Well crap," Naruto summed up their collective mood perfectly.

"The good thing is we all made it in time to empty my bank account, the bad news is, it'll be a few hours til I can come through on my side, if only because half of the shops we need to visit are not open til ten," Kakashi drawled

The three children in front of him whined aloud. Naruto was doing the best out of the team, he was completely rested and able to do any task he needed, or wanted to do in the case of training. Sasuke was mentally ready and rested but if the work involved his legs he would have told you to stuff it, he was sorer than he had ever been. Sakura looked and felt awful. Her face was sullen and sagging, she felt like she hadn't slept for days and her whole lower body ached loudly, if a body can ache loudly.

"Team, let's meet up at the Hokage's office for debriefing at ten then we'll hit the town for lunch. Dismissed."

Kakashi puffed away into smoke. The other three members simply walked to their respective homes.

Ten o'clock, in the Hokage's private office.

"Look, sensei, I know what I did was reckless, but what choice did I have? We were all the whole nation could afford, and the children performed very well under the circumstances."

"But that's just it, they're still children! Not just any children, one was my child and another is the prized above all else Uchiha survivor and the other is just a "sweet little girl from a civilian family." You wouldn't survive a week back in Konoha if they had died, if any of them had died."

"Yes, sensei, I understand but-"

"Lynched! Out in the streets! The moment word got out!"

The Yondaime sighed taking several deep breaths, calming himself down.

"Alright, I understand Kakashi, you did what you thought best for your team and all of Konoha's reputation. And given their performance, you all did very well. But you say Naruto tapped into the Kyuubi's power? Was this a conscious decision on his part? Do you think he was aware of it?"

"Yes, sir, he tapped into a rather large amount of its power. I don't think he consciously chose to pull on it, though. It seemed more of an instinctual reaction to the danger and his own rage. He may or may not have been aware of it but he was aware of his actions. He only tapped into it for two short bursts, the first of which was when he believed Sasuke to be dead, this one only lasted long enough for him to completely disarm Zabuza's playmate. The second time was when Gato showed up with his army, this time I think he as more aware of it, he didn't punch as much as he simply clawed through the thugs in his way."

"I love how nondescript your mission reports are, and much more information I can get out of you by simply talking to you. All of you mission reports are to be verbal from now on."

Kakashi nodded simply.

"My team is waiting outside, should I bring them in to report?" Kakashi asked wondering how complete his report was and how much Minato thought he could gain from the children.

"No, you and your team have the day off. Enjoy it," Yondaime turned to the window and gazed out to the monument in the mountainside.

"Sir!"

_Good kami, did you ever have to deal with this, Sarutobi?_ Minato thought sadly.

Kakashi closed the door softly behind him and walked down the street to the team awaiting his eminently late arrival.

"Yo," he greeted casually.

"You're late!" Naruto and Sakura yelled in unison.

"Actually, I have a good excuse this time," Kakashi said calmly holding a finger up in defense.

"Oh, right, like you ever have good excuses," Naruto grumbled at the thought of another lame excuse.

"I already reported for our mission," Kakashi said.

The entire team's jaw dropped at that.

"You what?" Sakura said dumbfounded.

"I already reported, so let's get to eating," Kakashi said as he walked past his students.

The team gawked at their sensei until he rounded a corner on his route to Ichiraku, which snapped them to their attentions and they sprinted after him to catch up. The team first stopped at Ichiraku, Naruto was the only one who was eating there. The miso bowls were coming as fast as poor Ayane and Ichiraku himself could make them but it was not fast enough. They left Naruto to eat his ramen after he told them he could be a long, long while. The rest of the team continued down to the yakitori restaurant.

Once Naruto had finished all the ramen he could eat he left the tab in Kakashi's name promising on his love of ramen to get the semi-flake to pay. He started walking down the direction he saw them go in. A single loud individual took his attention. He turned his head down the side street that it emanated from to see Konohamaru in the hands of a larger man in black.

"That hurt you little brat!" he roared shaking Konohamaru to emphasize his annoyance.

"Kankurou, stop it! He's just a kid!" the blonde woman next to him yelled.

"Why should I stop? This brat ran into me and I'm gonna teach him a lesson in manners!" he balled his spare fist.

"Fine, I'm not going to be involved in this anymore," she said and turned her back starting to walk away slowly.

Naruto charged down the street as fast as he could, catching Kankurou's fist inches in front of Konohamaru's face.

"Why don't you learn some yourself, you big ass monkey," Naruto growled softly.

Kankurou pulled and pushed but his hand did not budge. The blonde woman turned to see who could speak so softly yet so menacingly.

_Wow, he's cute if a little short_, she thought upon seeing Naruto.

Naruto then grabbed the wrist holding Konohamaru up and began squeezing his fingertips into the joint, sinking them in slowly. Kankurou relented his grip after only a few seconds, dropping the boy abruptly to the ground with a squeak. Kankurou pulled away from Naruto and flung his arm behind himself for the big bundle of bandages on his back. Naruto had not even seen it until he had reached for it.

"I'll kill you!" he screamed and slammed his bundle into the ground.

A small, deep and soft voice said a simple 'stop' that completely froze Kankurou in place. The blonde girl froze looking ahead blankly her mind seeking a safe place: as long as she was not addressed she was fine. Kankurou turned around as the blood froze in his veins. The sight of his little brother made him almost drop his dummy that now felt like it had the weight of the world on his fingertips. The small redhead stood on the bottom of a tree branch not twenty feet behind the small group. Naruto watched with wonder and respect as the small boy not much older or younger than himself utterly controlled these two older ninja with such ease. He continued with his fixed gaze to gauge the boy in all his potential abilities.

Then he disappeared into sand.

Naruto was utterly shocked that someone so young had mastered that kind of skill. What amazed him further was that he had moved directly behind Kankurou and Naruto had not sensed him.

"I will not put up with your stupidity ruining this opportunity for us, Kankurou," he said slowly pulsing with open venom.

"S-sorry," Kankurou could barely force out.

The red head walked straight up to Naruto without a second thought making Kankurou stumble backwards to avoid contact. The short red head stared straight into Naruto's eyes.

_Does he ever sleep? Look at those raccoon eyes_, Naruto thought without showing it, his electric blue eyes glowering in return.

"My name is Gaara of the Desert. We are here for the chuunin exams. Excuse my brother's foolishness," he said simply without blinking.

"Are you assuming me to respond with my name? While you introduced yourself, you never actually asked for mine," Naruto replied truly curious as to the sheer confidence emanating from this boy who was younger than himself he could now tell.

"I know your name, Naruto-san. It would be rare for one to come here and not know you through simply looking."

"It's actually the other way around. Not many people recognize the Kage's son until he has accomplished something, as of yet I have not."

"Either way, I look forward to seeing you in the upcoming matches," he turned back to his siblings and walked slowly past them.

Kankurou watched Gaara until he was a block away. He looked back to Naruto and, grunting, he walked after his brother.

"I'm Temari by the way," the blonde girl spoke softly to him with a slight tinge of pink to her cheeks.

Naruto bowed his head lightly and looked to the retreating backs of the other two boys.

"Shouldn't you catch up to them before you get left behind?" Naruto asked returning his eyes to her teal orbs.

"I can catch up later. Our hotel isn't hard to find," she said all to happy to find an excuse to leave her stupid brothers be alone to fight.

It was then that Sasuke decided to round the corner to see Naruto with a taller blonde.

"Naruto, where have you been? Kakashi wants to know how much of a bill you ran up, so ditch the girl and find him," Sasuke summed up in his annoyed tone. He regretted not eating more as he was the only one who could move well enough to get Naruto.

"Who's the prick?" Temari asked Naruto bluntly.

He only looked at her and smiled.

_**Hurry up, kit, we need to talk. I just remembered something**_, Naruto's permanent tenant called out.

"Here, since you actually know his location, or at least his last one, why don't you go find him?" Naruto said holding out his bill from Ichiraku.

"What am I? A messenger pigeon?" Sasuke said grumpily taking the ticket and stalking off in the direction he came from.

"More like a carrier crow," both Naruto and Temari said to each other.

They both looked at each other in surprise. Naruto shook out of it first.

"Anyway, I need to get somewhere. I guess I'll see you in the exams," Naruto said as he jogged off.

_Damn, there goes another cute one_, Temari thought as Naruto hurried around a corner and into a small thicket.

"Stupid fox, what have you 'remembered' now?" he spoke aloud to his inner tenant.

That redhead, he is a jinchuuriki as well. But his seal does not work like ours at all, his is almost a possession. The particular bijuu he holds is the One-Tailed Badger.

"If he's only a one tail then we shouldn't have any problems, right?"

POSSESSION, you inexperienced runt. His demon can come all the way out under certain circumstances, I can never attain that: you will always have ultimate control. He is much more dangerous than you right now. Which is why we need to do some work immediately.

"Whenever you say 'work' your intended meaning is torture," Naruto muttered crossing his arms. "How am I to deal with a bijuu in any close length of time?"

This work won't be torture, at least not so much as you think it will be. That imagination of yours is going in the wrong direction. You won't be able to figure it out.

"Fine, stupid fox," Naruto muttered as he leapt to his right into the tree canopy.


	15. Thoughts of Masters

A large office was filled to the brim with grey-green flak jackets standing and milling around a small desk at which sat a tal

A large office was filled to the brim with gray-green flak jackets standing and milling around a small desk at which sat a tall thin man with blonde hair going out in every direction, a shorter man with a horizontal scar across his face and black hair in a short, spiked ponytail and a short and wistful looking woman with straight black hair covering one eye. The assembled flak jackets filed into rank as called and began the meeting. They called out team numbers and titles, the respective flak jacket gave the ninja salute of the index and middle finger of the left hand held straight and pointed up with the rest of the fist balled held in front of the chest with fingers to the ceiling and their name along with a single sentence meaning one of the following 'my team is ready for the chuunin exams' or 'my team is not yet fully prepared for the exams.'

The flak jackets replies were all as expected until the three rookie teams were called.

"Sarutobi Asuma, team 10, my team is ready for the exams down the last man."

The assembled flak jackets that did not have rookie teams looked around between each other and Asuma.

"Unusual, but not unheard of. Sensei of Team 8, report," the blonde man called out.

"Yuuhi Kurenai, Team 8, all of the members of my team are ready for the chuunin exams," she quoted the book exactly being a rookie teacher.

"Wow, two for two so far," Minato spoke aloud. _I wonder if Naruto truly is ready._ "Team 7, report."

"Team 7, Hatake Kakashi, my team is fit to compete."

Iruka stood and slammed his hands on the desk.

"Impossible!" he roared. "I taught all nine of those children in the academy not nine months ago! I can understand a few ones being ready but all of them?!"

"Iruka, they aren't your students anymore," Kakashi said softly to the disgruntled teacher. "They are willing soldiers of Konoha. They are all cocky kids, they need a lesson in pride that can only be taught by breaking them."

"But they'll be killed!"

Minato pulled Iruka roughly to his rump in the chair and stood moving in front of the desk. Every flak jacket knew the meaning of their leader moving: he was not happy.

"Iruka, it is not your choice anymore, nor do you have any say in the matter. Kakashi, do not speak so roughly of our young recruits no matter how stubborn they are. All three of you with rookie teams, you all know the consequences if any of the die, correct?" there really were no consequences usually, except for the case of Kakashi, whose team had two members of special repute.

"Yes," the three rang out in knowing unison.

"Good, dismissed," Minato walked beside Kakashi and whispered for his ears only. "This better not turn into another of your screw-ups, my young pupil."

The blood ran cold in Kakashi's veins when his teacher said this, he knew the pain of harming or attempting to harm Minato's blood: a year of torture and pain beyond one's limit with no chance of death. Minato was first out of the room, while the aura of pain and anger he gave off made all of the assembled flak jackets wait until they could no longer sense it before moving out of the room. Kakashi walked in the back of the line.

"So, that's my afternoon. Met an over-zealous ass, a creepy short guy and a weird blonde chick who seemed all too excited to follow me," Naruto finished the telling of his afternoon.

"That sounds like you made that up," Sakura said in disbelief.

"Actually I believe him," Sasuke said harshly, barely believing he was backing up the only guy who was proven to be his better.

"What?" Sakura said looking to Sasuke her jaw agape.

"I saw the girl, how much is actually true is up for grabs. I just believe him until I see otherwise."

Sakura looked down and reconsidered her previous idea of Naruto, which was nowhere near as good as it should have been given what he'd shown her.

"I see my little kiddies are passing the time nicely," Kakashi said cheerily.

"You're over an hour late, we had to do something," Naruto stated dragging his eyes to his sensei's face.

"Well, fine, be picky. I have something for you all in either case," Kakashi said as he produced three long slips of paper. "I took the liberty of recommending you three to take this year's chuunin exam. You must read these sheets of paper and sign your name, only if you want to compete of course. It is completely in your hands if you do or not." Kakashi handed the three sheets out to his students before turning to leave.

"Oh, and don't tell each other if you're going to compete before you arrive at the drop off point. Toodooloo!" Kakashi said happily in farewell.

The three students simply looked at the paper in each of their hands. Naruto was the first to act. He hopped off of the pole that he was perched on and walked in the general direction of his family mansion.

"Where are you going?" Sakura asked harshly.

"You know, for someone who pretends not to like me, you ask a lot of questions about me," he said turning his head to her but not his body,

"Let's at least talk about this exam before you leave."

"And for as high as your scores in the academy were, you're pretty thick. The reason he told us not to talk about it was so that you in particular didn't feel pressured by our decisions," Naruto continued to walk away before finishing his sentence.

Sasuke pushed off the railing he was leaned on and walked in the opposite direction of Naruto.

"Sasuke where are you going?"

"You heard him, you're too easily pressured. You will just follow along in our choices even if those choices are counter to your better judgment," Sasuke said as he stalked off to his own home.

Sakura slumped down watching Sasuke leave, admiring his stride as she did. She slid down from her light seat on a rail's end and moped her way slowly towards her home.

I don't feel pressured by them, especially not by Naruto, he doesn't really deserve my respect: he hasn't done or been through anything, not like Sasuke has. So I know I'm not affected by his decisions, and I'm not pressured by Sasuke. I would do anything for him but I don't get pressured into things by him.

She rounded a corner and barely noticed the small child she inadvertently forced out of her way.

_Have I ever acted like they can pressure me? I don't think I have… Maybe they misread something I did. I should still think about this exam. I need to consider if _I_ am ready for this._

She thought this as she walked up her steps.

Maybe I should talk to dad about this…

Naruto walked to his family mansion wondering what to expect from his father. Stuff seemed to be walking into his day and finding new and inventive ways to disrupt the norm. He knew his father knew about his chuunin nomination, but what he did not know is what his father would think about it.

He reached out for the front door handle. Whatever his father thought, he would know soon enough.

"Hey, dad," he called as he wrapped around the door and closed it.

"I'm upstairs, son. I'd like to talk to you if you have a moment," he called from up the stairs that immediately faced the front door.

Naruto walked up the stairs and headed down to the library: where his father was most often after work. As he past the dojo his father called out to him with a simple 'oi.'

"Come here, son," Minato called from a cross-legged position in the middle of the tatami mats.

"Uhm, why are you here, dad?" Naruto asked nervously knowing full well the answer.

"You know why. You're teacher and _my_ student has nominated you for the chuunin selection exams. I haven't seen you fight in a while, so I'm going to give you a pre-test of sorts. You may only take it once and the test time is now," he pushed himself up spinning himself around and stomping the floor causing the tatami mats immediately around him to give off a cloud of dust. Naruto swallowed hard.

"Ready yourself, son," he said as he dashed at Naruto.

He threw a straight punch to his son's jaw. Naruto barely pushed it aside with the outside of his right hand and threw a straight hard line punch to his dad's chest. When Naruto connected, he released a burst of chakra out of his knuckles sending his father skidding backwards on the balls of his feet. Unscathed Minato rushed again. Naruto prepared for another head-on attack only to barely be able to follow his father as he dashed to the side. Minato launched his shin at his son's gut but Naruto folded at his hip, pushed off with his hands and let the force from the kick flip him over onto his feet.

"Good," Minato said as he turned to try and rush his son before he could turn around, but Naruto had turned during the flip and, conversely to his initial state, Naruto's body was absolutely loose and expecting. Minato sent a flurry of punches aimed at Naruto's midsection and head only to have them all parried and blocked in various and creative ways. The last time he was parried it sent him off balance enough for Naruto to launch his knee into his father's stomach and, mimicking his prior performance, he released a burst of chakra from his knee. This launched Minato back three feet landing hard on his back.

"Very good," he said from his back then he kicked himself up into a completely upright stance. "I came at you with about the same skill as Kakashi without his jutsus or his sharingan and you still managed to stave me off. Most excellent for such a short time. But be warned, some of those in this exam will have better fighting skills than Kakashi as well as jutsus that you've never even thought of. Be prepared for something new and unusual. Now, rest, tomorrow we'll have another test."

"But you- crap, stupid looking underneath the underneath. I'm only good at one layer you know?" Naruto whined as he crossed his arms.

Minato reached down and ruffled his son's hair.

"So am I," he whispered.

Minato straightened and whipped around to the door.

"Dinner time?" Naruto asked excitedly as they rounded the corner.

His father nodded and Naruto gave a loud cheer.


	16. Excercise for a Test?

Late at night, a small blonde figure walked the grounds of the Namikaze estate. The figure continued into the deep into the woods. The small blonde ran through a short series of hand seals. Once he finished, a large man with blood red eyes and red-orange hair appeared before him. The man adjusted the red battle armor on his shoulders then turned back to the short child in front of him.

"So, what did you think of the girl who was following you today?" Kyuubi asked.

"What do you think I thought of her?" Naruto rebutted. "You always complain about how loud and clear my thoughts are."

"Oh, I already know, it's just much more satisfying to embarrass you about it."

Naruto muttered something incoherent.

"What?" Kyuubi said leaning one ear to Naruto.

"I said, I'D LIKE TO START TRAINING NOW!" Naruto yelled into Kyuubi's ear.

"GAH! Dammit, child! You know how sensitive my hearing is!"

"It's why I do it. Can we get started? Or would you rather continue abusing me?" Naruto complained.

"Fine, you blonde brat, I don't know who is worse between you and your father."

"Probably me, I'm younger," Naruto said in mock wisdom.

Kyuubi rolled his eyes and the night of training began.

Minato dragged his son out of bed and into the forest early the next morning. Minato pulled Naruto into his arms and tossed him into the air to wake him. Naruto yelped and flipped his body over to land on all fours.

"Well, that got you up and on all cylinders," Minato said laughing.

Naruto growled and curled up on the ground only to be picked up by his coat.

"Kyuubi went rough on you last night."

Naruto snored in response. Minato shook him about by his collar and repeated himself once his son was awake.

"Yeah, he pushes me harder and harder each time," Naruto said with a yawn. "I was barely able to keep up with him."

"Like any good teacher should," Minato said as he set his son onto his feet. "Anyway, the closer you get to death and survive, the stronger you become. So let's start my training routine," Minato said with a grin.

Naruto groaned as they started sprinting into the forest quickly leaping into the treetops.

"I never got a chance to ask you about your day yesterday," Minato implied his curiosity.

"It was fine, I actually found out about the chuunin exams from these Sand ninjas who are here for it."

"Huh, they said they wouldn't be here for another day or two," Minato pondered. "Did you get their names?"

"Uhm, there was the tall clown-guy who threatened Konohamaru, Kankurou, the insanely creepy guy who is also the reason Kyuubi is pushing me so hard, Gaara, and the girl who wanted to follow me around, Temari," Naruto listed as he twisted under a tree branch.

"The Sand Siblings, I'm surprised I was not informed of _their_ arrival, this just means we have to work harder. You need to be especially ready for Gaara," he said as he doubled his pace forcing Naruto to keep up.

Minato stopped suddenly while Naruto zipped by to stop ten meters ahead of his father.

"What did you mean when you said Temari wanted to follow you?"

"Well, now that the morning training is done, let's get lunch," Minato said cheerily.

"Morning training? You plan on more stuff like this for me? I can barely move," Naruto griped.

"You seem to have no trouble walking towards Ichiraku, son," Minato teased. "I think you're holding back on me. Tell Fuu-san to make your training purely mental tonight. I'm riding you as hard as you can go today."

Naruto groaned as he sat down and set his chin on the counter.

"Hahah! If it isn't my two favorite customers!" Ichiraku greeted the blonde boys. "What'llit be today?"

"Pork today," Yondaime said with a smile. "And beef curry ramen for this midget next to me, throw in some meat, too."

"Oh, something special going on?" Ichiraku inquired as he half-turned for the kitchen.

"Yeah, my boy here is gonna be a chuunin," he smiled wide and patted his son gently on the back.  
"Or die in training," Naruto grumbled under his breath as Ichiraku turned chuckling to the kitchen.

"Naruto I wouldn't kill you, ever," Minato said seriously.

"I kn-"

"I'll just get you most of the way there then bring you back stronger," Minato interjected jovially.

Naruto growled at that statement, but changed his mood rapidly. He could smell the savory, delectable ramen.

The day of the Chuunin exams arrived and Minato believed his son ready for them. He ushered his son out the door proudly to meet with his team at the exam building. When he arrived at the initial exam building, he jogged up to the door only to find that they were not standing at the door where they should have been. Naruto's heart dropped. He wanted to take this exam and after all the stuff his father forced upon him, he felt disappointed in his teammates. Hanging his head down, he walked up to the door and twisted the handle and flinging the door open much harder than was necessary.

"Stupid team, we are ready for this and I'll take this damn exam by myse-"

"Naruto, get over here!" Sakura called from the stairs. "You're late!"

"Hardly," Naruto scoffed. "At least my reasons are true."

"And those would be?" Sasuke asked leaning on the wall of the landing.

"This is the first time I've had a full night's sleep since we heard about this thing. I've been training non-stop," he muttered with annoyance overwhelming his face and voice.

"Don't you normally adore training?" Sasuke asked quirking his eyebrow.

"There's a difference between training as you know and being pushed to the edge of death and back each day."

Sakura visibly cringed and Sasuke replied with a simple 'ah.'

They continued up the stairs passing a large crowd on the second floor. Naruto looked up and saw that a room number was 325.

"Heh, genjutsu," he said simply.

"Yeah, I'm surprised it caught so many," Sakura said softly.

"Don't people usually count the flights of stairs they climb or at least notice the walk-time was too short?" Sasuke asked in contempt of the outright weakness displayed by the gathered ninja.

"Apparently not," Naruto stated simply.

They continued up the stairs and down the hall to the prescribed room. When they opened the door they had the attention of each and every gathered ninja. Every gathered ninja was nervous as hell and the new people in the room looked too confident and calm, they needed to be just as nervous as they were. Well, not all of the ninja were nervous.

"Sasuke~!" a blonde girl cooed as she jumped onto his back wrapping her frail-looking arms around his neck. Sasuke merely growled and stared in a different direction.

"Ino-pig," Sakura muttered angrily. "What are you doing?"

"Holding onto _my_ Sasuke, that's what, forehead-girl," Ino stated happily and all-too-loudly.

"Sasuke isn't yours," Sakura started.

_Good god, if she starts getting possessive again,_ Sasuke thought angrily.

"He isn't anybodies' but his own, so let go of him before I make you," Sakura said putting her hands on her hips.

"Oh yeah? How are you going to manage that?" Ino said slipping off of a surprised Sasuke and into a prepared stance as the rest of the rookie nine walked up behind her.

"Just like that," Sakura said as she turned her attention to the newcomers. "Hey, guys."

Shikamaru grunted a greeting as he started talking lazily with Naruto who was surprisingly calm for once, Chouji simply nodded as he continued munching his chips, Shino's head barely moved, Hinata simply stared at Naruto unknowing of the greeting and Kiba joined in Naruto and Shikamaru's conversation after waving a hand to Sakura.

The nine rookie ninjas continued on for a couple minutes when a taller, gray-haired teen strolled up and greeted them with a plastered smile.

"My name is Yakushi Kabuto, you're all rookie ninja, right?" he grinned through his teeth.

The entire group ignored him, but he did not seem to notice.

"Since you're all rooks then I think I should warn you, many in these exams are not so happy-go-lucky as you are, they would much rather kill you than listen to you chatter about so pleasantly. It happened in a chuunin exam a few years ago."

"Then why are you talking to us?" Shikamaru lazily commented. "If you're afraid of that happening, shouldn't you be distancing yourself from us?"

"Especially since you just said you failed the exam for a couple years straight," Naruto added.

"How do you know I've failed it for a couple years straight?" he asked truly curious.

"Chuunin exams and all happenings associated are confidential, only way to know is to be there or be higher than special chuunin. Let's ignore the loser trying to buy our favor," Naruto snipped as he returned his attention to Shikamaru.

_Huh, looks like they're all smarter than I was prepared for,_ Kabuto thought as he turned and left.

"Alright, kids, let's get started," a loud deep voice rang over the gathered genin.

Each head turned to the front to see a tall man with a black coat using his hitae-ate as a bandanna.

"Welcome the first part of this year's chuunin exams: the written test. I am your proctor for this part: Morino Ibiki. The rules are simple. You start this test with ten points, you lose points for every wrong answer, and also you lose a point each time you cheat. If on man on your team fails, the whole team fails. You have one hour for the exam. There are nine questions and the tenth and final question will be given at the last fifteen minutes. Line up, and get your seat number," Ibiki said as he moved to the desk provided for him.

All of the genin lined up for their lottery number. When they all had been seated, Ibiki gave the go ahead. The papers all flipped over in unison.

The mood of the room immediately dropped.

_Are you kidding me?_ Sakura thought. _No genin should know the answer to these questions and no ninja really needs to know how to find these answers. _

Sasuke was very annoyed at the stupid questions on his paper. He could answer two but that was about it. He noticed that there was a guy two seats to his right whose pencil had not stopped moving since the exam began. He tried to reactivate his sharingan to copy his writing, it took him a few moments to get it or so he thought, it actually took him a second and a half.

Naruto had gotten a seat next to Shikamaru. Shikamaru used his Shadow Bind to give Ino and Chouji the answers while Naruto laid his head down on the desk and closed his eyes. Naruto lifted his head and stared off into space as his hand moved across the page writing in answers. His eyes would occasionally follow a fly or a moth through the air allowing his cover to be completed. He was using his peripheral vision to see both Shikamaru's and the other guy's answers.

Ten minutes into the exam students were failing. Their numbers were called out along with another pair. Each team that left griped and complained loudly at the failing member.

Sakura looked around to see Naruto behind her watching a fly buzz around the room with his palms on his chin and Sasuke several rows in front of her looking at his lap presumably.

I hope they did alright, I know Sasuke had a way and Naruto probably came up with a way not long after the rules were given but still…

Sasuke was turning his Sharingan on and off repeatedly, trying to get his time down and to make it more instinctual. It didn't seem to drain his chakra at all, but Kakashi nearly passed out from use after only a short while.

It must be more draining on a non-Uchiha, Sasuke concluded.

He stopped flipping the on/off switch to his sharingan and looked around the room. He saw Sakura some rows behind him and Naruto even further back. Sakura looked like she was about to cry from boredom and Naruto was presumably daydreaming just like Shikamaru was to his left.

Forty-two minutes had passed since the test had begun. More than half of the examinees had been eliminated.

A single thought ran through all of the nine rookie's minds: what's the tenth question?

AN. Good grief... finally done with this chapter. I've opened this to edit more times than I care to count. The count is so high that I hate the first few paragraphs. Anyway, I hope you all like it! X '3 For some reason my homework load has gone down as the year rolled on... oh well. It's freshman year, I'll figure it out later. .


	17. Test within the Forest

The last three minutes dragged on for an eternity. All the gathered ninja just wanted to get this question over with, and move on to the next part of the test, which was hopefully more interesting and easier than this section. The fateful moment finally arrived and Ibiki cleared his throat loudly to get the attention of the gathered genin.

"It's time to reveal the final question, but first, some additional rules to go along with it. First off, you may now choose to attempt an answer or not. If you don't want to answer it, simply raise your hand and you and your team will be declared as failing."

"Why in the Seven Hells would we do that?" Naruto spoke up loudly from the back of the room.

"Because, if you choose to take the question and you fail it, not only do you fail the exam, but you will be barred from ever taking the chuunin exams again. You will be forever stuck as genin," he said menacingly.

"But that's not fair!" someone from the front east side of the room yelled.

"My test, my game, my rules. You're just unlucky to have me as the proctor for your test. If this had been any other year, you would not have had it so hard. Just blame karma or something for your rotten apples," Ibiki said simply raising his hands as if to drop the blame from himself.

The room quieted as hands started rising into the air.

"46 forfeits, 82 and 3 also fail," Ibiki called out.

The numbers kept getting called out as genin fled from the room. Most genin thought it would be better to just try again later.

Naruto looked to Shikamaru and muttered:

"you better be able to answer this damn thing."

Shikamaru merely grumbled. Ino and Chouji were thinking the same thing.

Sakura knew she could answer whatever question was thrown at her. After all, she did not get highest marks in the academy without good reason. Sasuke thought that there had to be more to this test. It was too difficult, too strenuous to be so simple.

"You have three minutes to decide whether or not you will take your chances," Ibiki said as he narrowed his eyes on each and every single person still in the exam running.

The seconds slinked slowly as his scowl scalded spineless, sacrificial, suckling shams. Every score of silent seconds a hand slid up and three shams would leave the room. The silence did not help those whose nerves were already on the knife's edge. It felt like a pressure pressing them down to the blade, cutting into their unprepared nerves until finally they raised their hand if simply to end the torture of the silence. There were a few who seemed undaunted by the claim: a small red head looked on in the same impassive way he had for the entire exam, a blonde girl seemed to enjoy staring back and matching his glare, another black haired boy was staring a hole into his head and a smaller blonde boy was staring into space as was the black haired boy next to him.

Finally, the three minutes were over and Ibiki indicated it with an instantaneous injury to his desk.

"Time's up. Those of you still in the room, will be ushered on to the next part of the exam as soon as the other proctor arrives."

The genin were all completely aghast at that statement.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" a loud female voice rang out.

"What were the words that I used? What I meant was the commonly understood meaning of those words in that order. If you can't understand that, then you shouldn't have passed first year of the academy," Ibiki said succinctly, plucking the noisy genin and putting her in her proper place. "You passed the test, dimwit. If by nothing other than sheer stubbornness, you passed. This test was meant to test your nerves under pressure as well as your skills at gathering information. The few chuunin planted around the room should have been ample for such a task. However, this test was obviously nowhere near the amount of stress you may endure in the field. Dedication and perseverance are your only friends when faced with tough situations. Pray, however."

Ibiki lifted his hands to his bandanna as he trailed off. He slowly and ceremoniously removed it, keeping his head out of view until he let his hands fall to his sides.

"That you never lose these friends when the need arises."

His skull was completely bald from past burns while laceration scars and screw holes marked him like a map. How the man survived such nefarious torture was beyond imagining for the ninja in front of him.

He replaced his bandanna just as reverently as he had removed it.

"By the way, my name and title is: Morino Ibiki, Harbinger of Paroxysm, Captain of Interrogations. You now have bragging rights of surviving a test designed and implemented by a man who pries secrets from S-Class missing-nin."

The window crashed in and a mass of balled up canvas flew through the now open window. Kunai flew out from it landing in the ceiling. A woman landed in front of it as the canvas wrapped around her and settled to provide her with a backdrop.

"You all better get ready because your next test is gonna be killer!" the woman yelled out over the flabbergasted genin. Her backdrop read "Mitarashi Anko! Second test: Survival!"

The exam hopefuls stared at her in shock and disbelief. Ibiki peeked half of his head around the canvas and muttered to Anko.

"Do you ever read a room before you come diving in and wrecking everything?"

"Shut up! You told me you would get rid of at lest eighty percent of them! It looks to me like you only got rid of half of them!" Anko yelled turning to him.

"I actually got rid of 67 percent," Ibiki said picking up his roster. "So I'm not that far off. We have some tough recruits it would seem."

"Well, whatever," she said throwing her hand onto her protruding hip. "All of you lucky-ass bastards who passed show-up at training ground number 44 ASAP! That's two hours, maggots."

She ran and dove out of the window again with maniacal laughter trailing her. The entire room kept their eyes trained on the window, expecting her to dive back in or some other ridiculous act. They were all, gladly, disappointed. The insane woman did not show up, so all of the hopefuls filed out to the appointed meeting ground.

"So glad you all could make it in time, any later and I would have started to hunt stragglers down," Anko chirped.

The astonished crowd of Chuunin hopefuls stared at her silently.

"I either case, for this next exam you will need to sign these waivers in order to compete."

"What the hell do you mean?" hollered Naruto.

Anko flung a shuriken at Naruto's cheek only to have Naruto swiftly slip out of its path. Anko appeared behind Naruto with another kunai at his throat.

"Usually the loud ones are the weakest," Anko purred as she slid her blade along his cheek. Naruto smirked as his hand draped loosely by his holster. The blade removed itself and slid into its black home and Anko half turned away from Naruto.

"I believe this is yours," a long, slimy tongue said holding her previously loosed weapon.

Anko eyed the conspicuous length before she snapped her weapon back.

"The reason for the waivers is that you could potentially kill or be killed in this next round. The waivers are at the kiosk to there. Get a waiver and either sign it or don't. you sign, your choice. If you do choose to compete, come back to this entrance in one hour. Any stragglers will not be allowed to enter. Get moving," Anko howled.

The gathered teens and preteens moved to get the waivers and moved into separate areas to talk among their teams.

"A-a-are we going to s-s-sign it?" muttered a small dark haired girl.

"Of course we are! We're the best here, Hinata!" replied her smelly teammate.

"We will sign," the tallest and quietest member of the team said softly.

"See? Even Shino agrees that we are the best!"

_I did not say that_, Shino thinks. _But a large head and a loud mouth are how Kiba operates. Who am I to tell him to be otherwise?_

_No, we aren't_, she thought assuredly. _Naruto-kun's team could beat us hands down._

"So we are signing this, right?" Naruto glared holes in his waiver.

"Why wouldn't we?" Sakura said already searching herself for a pen.

"Because someone might have over thought it and our readiness for it," Sasuke muttered pulling out a pen quickly.

Sakura humphed as she snatched up his pen.

"You are signing it, Shikamaru, and that's final!" Ino crossed her arms and glared the lazy preteen into his place.

"Geez, I only asked if it was really worth it to risk our lives for this," his gaze shifted to the side bored and aggravated.

"Haven't you anything to say, Chouji?" Ino re-angled her upper body to lean forward to Chouji's large, chip eating form.

His head shook from side to side in between his chip bites.

"Good. Now, here's a pen," she pulled one out of nowhere and hawked over their papers as they signed.

All of the teams were at the appointed spot earlier than needed.

"Well, it looks like you maggots decided to play it safe and be early so we'll begin early," Anko ate the last dango off her stick and threw it to stick into the dirt. "Alright, rules are simple. In order to continue you must obtain one heaven and one earth scroll. You start with one or the other. Get both scrolls and get to the tower in the middle of the forest within one week. Of course this means that only half of you can succeed but I suspect that the actual winners will be less than that. You get your scroll from that booth over there to prevent other teams knowing which scroll other teams have. You will also be given your starting gate in the booth. Now get moving!"


	18. Hell of a Good Start

Minato sat in his office hand interlaced in his lap. He was staring out of his window at the stone visages of his predecessors.

"So he really is going to try to take me down again?" he spoke to the large man in the darker corner of his office.

"Everything I've gathered leans that way. I don't understand what makes him think he could, you kicked his ass up one way and down the other not even fifteen years ago."

"You and I both know him, do you think he would let that bother him if he truly believed himself better now for some reason?" the young and buxom woman said as she sat on Minato's desk.

"He never was one to underestimate himself," Minato said quietly. "Let his plan unfold. Tell ANBU to take no overt action against him but to quietly increase their defenses. Do you know his plan of attack?"

"No, he has managed to keep that a secret, even from me."

"Fine then. ANBU is going to catch it after this mess."

xxxxxxxx

Naruto sat on the underside of a tree limb watching his teammates think.

"I never will understand you, Naruto," Sasuke muttered up to the blonde fly.

"And pray you never do," Naruto replied. "How come I caught ten fish bare handed and you guys are still talking things over?"

"Because planning takes time, something you seem to never have," Sakura said sharply.

"Hw much time does it take to say 'ok, scout around for twenty minutes, look for enemy teams, food sources, camping spots, the usual'?"

"Because we're trying to think about what to do to prove we're us when we get back, any one of us could be captured or something while we're out. How would we prove it really was us?" Sasuke countered.

"Simple come up with a phrase to say," Naruto said aloud. 'then have the real sign be something completely different like a gesture or noise,' he mouthed.

"OK, hotshot, what should we say?" Sasuke said aloud. 'Dibs on cocksucker.'

"We cannot leave for the roses are not wilted and the mud is not outside," Naruto said with a huge grin. 'I got middle finger.'

"What the hell, Naruto?!?" Sakura yelled purposefully and in actual shock. 'I'll just wink.'

"What? It's simple, and so off-the-wall no one will ever guess it," Naruto smiled as wide as his mouth would allow.

"Fine," was her false relent.

"We meet back here in fifteen. Go," Sasuke took lead to order as they all leapt off in different directions.

xxxxxxxx

Sasuke was first back to their meeting grounds. He crouched beside a tree keeping his eyes and ears open for any and all traces of movement. The next bit of movement he caught from his left: the bushes started rustling as a rather large amount of pink and red crawled out from under them.

"Sakura?" he asked questioningly fingering his kunai pouch.

She looked up from her belly and winked at his cautiously.

"Where's the other, cocksucker?" Sasuke said revealing his signal.

"You know he has no sense of time. He probably got lost or lost track of time," she explained as she crawled out to stand next to Sasuke.

"Why were you crawling under the bushes like that anyway?"

"I'll explain in a minute… I can only recall that once…" she said sickly.

Sasuke crossed his arms and waited for Naruto to show up. They had not waited long before a blonde and orange mass sprang from a tree into their midst.

"Hey guys," Naruto said as he approached.

"Oi, you know the drill blockhead," Sasuke said threateningly.

"Oh, right, 'we cannot leave-"

Sasuke assorted shuriken and kunai stopped him short.

"Hey, you could have let me finish!"

"Not a chance in hell," Sasuke followed his kunai to launch a preemptive offensive.

Sakura readied herself for any other attackers and kept Sasuke and his opponent on the edge of her awareness. Sasuke was keeping up a furious assault on his enemy. He sent a quick straight jab while sweeping with his opposite foot, spinning to kick at the head.

Naruto was being paced by two ninja both of which out massed him by at least a few kilos. They thought that was everything.

"You really think you can beat us both, small fry?" the one currently at Naruto's left growled.

Silence from Naruto's stone still lips.

"Fine, we'll see how you squeal!" he lunged with a single straight punch as his partner lurched to grab Naruto.

Naruto ducked and kicked the second's leg out from under him rolling out of his way. He flung himself up to stand and face the first hard in his eyes. Raising one hand palm up Naruto beckoned him to try again. The larger genin rushed him broadcasting his first hook punch. Naruto grabbed the offending wrist and shoulder and pulled hard as he sent a foot to kick the supporting shin out. He caught sight of a smirk on the flying face.

Sasuke had the tall wiry ninja in front of him leaning against a tree panting.

"Well, aren't you the sneaky bastard, you followed us for the whole ten minutes we were released," Sasuke inquired as he approached slowly. He knew the ninja was tired and beaten but he was still dangerous. "Where is Naruto?"

Sasuke had already walked as close as should have but he took another step forward trying to be intimidating. It was a mistake. The taller ninja stepped back onto the tree and kicked off of it to get more speed to his heel kick which he was spinning for. Sasuke leaped backwards and leaned his face back to avoid or lessen the hit. The speeding foot struck home on Sasuke's chin sending him careening onto his shoulders in the dirt. The ninja tried to continue his assault but a group of shuriken flew in front of him skinning his nose.

He turned full of rage trying to find the source of the flying metal. He looked and looked frantically before he heard a pop behind him and small wisp like arms fly round his throat and a pair of strong legs wrap his arm and pin it to his side. Sakura pulled his arm up before he could react and with her arm still around his neck she reached as far up as she could with the back of her other hand pressing his throat forward into her other hand which was gripping his tough collar and pulling her forearm hard into his Adam's apple. The young teen struggled but her already established grip and the lack of room between them made his escape impossible. He struggled and squirmed only to fall onto his side passed out or dead when Sakura pulled herself from his taller frame.

Naruto felt a large body strike him from behind as soon as he let go of the thrown hook. Both round faces lit up with glee at the strike. The other landed roughly and threw himself at his friend to crush Naruto between them only to have him disappear before he made contact. Both large frames slammed hard into one another. they both fell to the ground completely out of breath, without a smaller body to crush between them their open stomachs were slammed forcing the evacuation of their lungs.

Both bodies rolling on the ground gasping for air cued Naruto that they were not going to be up for a while. Naruto cautiously walked up and kicked both of them in the stomach to further keep them downed than frisked them searching for their scroll. Neither body had it.

Leaping to the trees, he sprinted for his teammates.

Sasuke had dragged the unconscious ninja to a tree and tied him to it as tight as he could. After briefly searching his body he discovered their scroll in a side pouch.

"Damn, another heaven scroll," Sakura said as she saw the kanji on its side.

Naruto flew out of the same tree they were standing before landing in a swirl of dust. He looked around the clearing and was disappointed that he did not see his teammates.

"Why aren't they here?" he sulked visibly slouching.

"We're behind you, dummy," Sasuke muttered annoyed.

"Oh!" Naruto said giving a turn. "Sorry, ooh! Good! Another heaven scroll!"

Finally getting why it was good to have a double of scrolls.

"Bartering," she said hitting herself on the head which caused both boys to look at her incredulously.

"You seriously just caught that?" they said in unison.

"Look, I was best at book smarts not strategy and in field planning."

Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other and added another discordant round to the day.

"Research."

Sakura looked peeved and turned around in a huff. Naruto giggled and Sasuke smiled wide a he could without actually showing his teeth.

"Anyway, Naruto, what delayed you? I know that jerk couldn't have beaten you," he threw his thumb over his shoulder at the incapacitated teen behind him.

"No, but his two oversized partners could, even if only for a few minutes. Both of those guys are out cold and probably won't be awake for a while. We should start looking to camp, there's a small stream with plenty of fish to the north. We should still be careful, though, no doubt others have seen the stream."

"Why are we camping so early?" Sasuke inquired. "The day is still bright as hell…"

"We need to be well fed and rested. Attacks can come at any time. We also need a general battle plan. Something I'd be much more comfortable doing 'camped' among some bushes with a tasty fish in my hands," Naruto said as he started for the aforementioned stream. "Come on, let's get some fish and the camp and decide on a plan."


	19. Dirty Business

Naruto was perched in a branch well hidden by its own and adjacent foliage. He stared down at a small burning fire with fish coking over it. He wanted to slip down and grab one but that would ruin his own plan.

Sakura was in some underbrush watching the fish with many wires attached to her fingertips. She was hungrier than Naruto was but she kept that at the back of her mind as she glanced around for any sign of movement aside from her teammates.

Sasuke watched down beside the fire at the three figures sitting and staring at the fire. He was the main part of this plan. Sasuke was to use bunshins of Naruto, Sakura and himself to keep it seeming like they were sitting at a fire talking casually. It was his job because he could keep it up longer than Sakura though his illusions were worse than hers but much better than Naruto's. Also, he could keep the flow of conversation original at least for about five minutes.

They had been at this for a few hours and Sasuke had already needed to break once. Naruto was debating whether or not he was going to break off this plan and move to something else when he felt a few medium sized chakra signatures approach slowly. He hated how this plan gave them no way of communication.

"You brats have a lot of nerve to leave a fire going so long," a young Sound nin with black spiked hair and cloth bracers on his forearms muttered. "Now give up your scroll."

The three fake Leaf nins kept on talking as if they did not hear him.

"Are you deaf as well as stupid?" he said as he released a gust of air from his hand to extinguish their fire, but the three nins kept on talking.

"What the hell? You can't even get their attention?" a taller girl with long black hair yelled coming from another side of the clearing. "Dosu, get out here and let's teach these three a lesson."

Another sound male came out but he was much sturdier and had long white hair with only his left eye exposed from his bandaged face.

"Indeed," he reeled back exposing his large device on his arm. He lunged with it whistling by his side.

Sakura pulled all of her right hand across her face and shuriken rained down in front of Sasuke's side of the clearing ad the three bunshins faded away. Dosu jumped back and away into the jowl of Naruto's waiting attack. Naruto swirled and pushed off from the underside of the branch he was perched on, he twirled in midair so that he could slam his heel into the base of his skull. His heel whipped the unsuspecting head into its chest and into the dirt with his feet kicking up dust behind him. landing roughly on all fours Naruto kicked his legs up into a hand planted kick to the other male's face. The slimmer boy reared his head back in a back flip to create distance and clear himself of the attack. Seeing his failed attack, Naruto's hands turned just enough so that his feet could plant and launch himself for another assault. The other boy had barely landed before Naruto was already coming at him again.

"Che," he said with arms raised and palms out.

Naruto realized what was about to happen and wrenched his whole frame in an attempt to get out of the way. He could only clear himself of one hand before he was struck by a huge amount of wind. He was flung back against a tree not ten feet from his original tree, but the full force of the blast was felt by the barely conscious Dosu who had straggled onto his hands and knees before he was struck again by his own comrade. Dosu yelled out as he was sent flying into Naruto's original tree where he was met by the cold embrace of concussion induced sleep.

"Bastard," Naruto muttered as he got to a crouch. His face had friction burns and his left shoulder had no cloth covering it and his back and neck were tweaked from the impact and landing.

Sasuke had caught he breath briefly and had dove down to incapacitate the girl who had almost thrown several needle-like things into Naruto's back during his first assault. He had thrown her roughly into the bush before diving back into his original area.

Sakura prepared her left hand trap as she watched hoping the sound ninja moved closer to the center of the camp clearing.

Naruto and slinked under the plants trying to avoid moving them to Dosu. He had pulled out several feet of rope and was wrapping his wrists in a very tight rope when he noticed that the girl was missing. He hoped she was out for the count and not hiding somewhere.

Sasuke ran over to behind the other ninja and sent a spinning kick to his head knocking him over. He continued his direction and tried to knock out his wind with a heel to the gut only to have his target roll out of the way and onto his feet. An orange blur dove out of a tree and slammed into the ninja's back. Naruto grabbed the ninja's wrists and pulled them firmly out to either side then wrenched them back up to the ninja's head and held his palms firmly against his own temples.

"Checkmate," Sasuke said as he strolled to the front of the kneeling ninja.

Sakura detached the wires from her fingers when she saw the ninja disabled and began crawling from her hiding spot.

"Did you check the other guy, Naruto?" Sasuke asked as he readied himself to search or interrogate the one in front of him.

"Didn't have time before and why would I stop and search him when there's an active threat as great as this one here?" Naruto said mockingly.

"Go to hell," was the slow and soft response.

"You first," Sasuke slammed his fist into the kneeling ninja's gut. "Where's your scroll?"

A long series of coughs was all that he heard.

"I'm sorry?" repeating his fist pattern. "I didn't catch that. Where is your scroll?"

"Sakura, go search the larger one behind us, I tied him up and I don't think he'll be awake for a while," Naruto ordered as he noticed Sakura's worried expression.

"Sasuke, I don't think we can get anything more out of him, how should we kill him? I've always wanted to know how long it took to bleed out after castration."

"I don't know, I wanna skin him alive and piss on him."

"OOOOhhhh sounds great, let's get on that!" Naruto and Sasuke both pulled out kunai.

"Let's do both!" Sasuke encouraged and he slowly slid his blade to the sound ninja's gut.

"Fine!" he yelled in a near panic, his eyes glued to the blade in front of him. "It's on Dosu's body, in his gauntlet…"

"Sakura, check the gauntlet," Naruto yelled keeping his blade to the back of the sound ninja's spine.

"Roger!" a few metal clinks and cranks later, every crank the blades getting deeper or closer. "Found it! It's even an earth scroll!" Sakura said excitedly.

"Great," the heel of Naruto's hand found the base of his prisoner's skull. Hard. Sasuke had to pull his kunai away quickly not to kill the boy falling into him.

"Now that we have this we can go to the tower, right?" Sakura said excitedly.

"Maybe, but it's been what? Two days? Other teams are probably either already in transit or lying in wait along the way. If we do, we should be as sneaky as possible," Naruto said calmly.

"How do you do that?" Sasuke asked truly curious.

"Which? The issuing of commands or analyzing a situation?" Naruto responded as he moved toward the tree line.

"Both, jackass. Stop showing off so much," Sasuke muttered as he followed Naruto into the trees.

"I guess I just picked up on the commands part, I did sit in my father's office a lot as a kid. As far as the analysis of a situation, I just do it. I never really cared to study strategy but I guess you can't ignore everything all the time, right?" his head looked back at his teammates while his mind was following every movement in the trees.

"With all of your pranks I would never have guessed you would be top of the class," Sakura interjected herself.

"So was Jiraiya, Yondaime, and I'm pretty sure Nidaime loved jokes too, just didn't perform them himself," Naruto said softer as he settled into a moving crouch.


	20. Mourning and Rattlers

Naruto's eyes opened to a dark patch of sky covered by leaves. He rocked himself into a sitting position and moved over to touch Sakura on the shoulder. She looked at him and nodded moving to his spot on the forest floor. As soon as Naruto knew she was asleep, he removed his orange coat and hid it in the bushes nearby. Pulling a small plastic baggy from his pouch he set to rubbing the black powder into his orange jeans, he knew this would take a while but it was necessary to him. He would never break his single, solitary vow. He made it so many years ago, that he cannot even remember when he made it but he remembered it every year. Once he was finished, he pulled them onto his legs and stood by the tree concealing his sky.

He stared into the sky, he knew they were not far from the center of the forest, he just could not tell how far until its center. It had taken them too long to get there without being noticed, but it was a necessary time waster. His thoughts ranged over everything that had happened during the past three days, Sakura's development, Sasuke's opening up, the traps and times he came close to killing. He still hated killing and something told him that today was going to be a very bad day. He hoped that the morning would not prove him right.

The sun had barely graced the sky, not that Sasuke not Sakura could tell. Why Naruto woke them up so early they would never know. All he told them was that 'he had a bad feeling' and wanted an early start.

"Naruto, what happened to your pants? And where is your coat?" Sasuke finally asked when his mind had fully awakened.

"It's July 17th," Naruto said firmly. "The day my mother was assassinated."

Sakura gasped and Sasuke looked at Naruto oddly.

"You wear black on this day every year, don't you?" Sasuke said. Sasuke knew about Kushina's death because of his clan affiliation while Sakura had no idea.

"Yeah, my father and I both," Naruto said as he brushed his pants self-consciously.

Sasuke nodded while Sakura tried to comfort Naruto before his fist was flung back to form a ninety-degree angle with his shoulder and elbow signaling a ready halt. Naruto then sprinted ahead in a crouch.

"What the hell is he seeing now," Sasuke muttered.

They heard a small squeak from up ahead then a loud 'fuck' muttered by a gruff voice. Naruto then called them out to them. Sakura and Sasuke both slowly moved out of their bushes to find Naruto crouched beside an unconscious girl with dark hair. They looked up to see stoic Shino watching the forest impassively and Kiba berating Naruto.

"I mean Christ, Naruto! What are you thinking?" Kiba continued before Naruto cut him off.

"We're in this forest, I've nearly killed three people and I suddenly sense someone up ahead. What the hell am I supposed to do? Besides, I'm not that scary," Naruto said densely.

"You grabbed her before checking who it was?" Sasuke asked amazed.

"I'm kinda on edge right now, I'm jumpy and I didn't grab her."

"Jumpy, heheh," Kiba snorted at Naruto's poor choice of wording earning him a glare from Sakura and a crack over the skull from Naruto.

"Damn perverts," Naruto muttered as he nudged Hinata's shoulder gently to wake her up.

Hinata gently stirred before seeing Naruto leaning over her.

"N-Naruto-kun... W-why are you here?" she asked dumbfounded.

"I'm taking this test too you know, and you're lucky it was I that found you three not some more menacing group," Naruto said calmly. "Like Sasuke," he said as he thumbed the air behind him.

"Hey," Sasuke growled.

"Anyway, We should get moving," Naruto said standing and offering his hand to the profusely blushing Hinata. "Have you guys gotten your second scroll?"

"Yeah, stupid group left theirs unattended for a minute so we had Akamaru sneak up grab it and scram," Kiba said proudly before Shino broke his bubble.

"We saw a red head, he was shorter than any of us and looked about a year or two younger, he killed three people without blinking nor hesitation. He almost killed us, too. Did you see him, Naruto?" Shino asked flatly.

"No, and I made a particular note to avoid him," Naruto replied quietly. "He could kill almost any of us without a second thought."

"Almost?" Sasuke inquired quirking his eyebrow at Naruto. "Being haughty are we?"

"I wasn't referring to me, at least not yet. I could give him a run for his money but I'd be hard pressed to not die."

Hinata turned pale as Naruto finished. If her inspiration were killed anytime soon, she would be completely lost.

_I still need to tell Naruto how much I really care_, Hinata thought as color returned to her visage.

"I don't plan on facing him anytime soon, nor should anyone here," Naruto gave a stern command.

Shino nodded as did Sakura and Hinata while Kiba looked at Naruto discerningly and Sasuke 'tched' a weak response. Naruto turned his head to Sasuke before ignoring him and moving toward the general center of the forest.

"You can come with me or wait here, your choice," he spoke without turning his head.

Sakura waited until Sasuke moved to follow Naruto.

"We don't need to move in a large group, that only attracts attention," Shino muttered softly.

"Yeah, and besides who needs that Naruto jerk anyway?" Kiba asked in ignorance earning a frown from Shino, which was the equivalent of a death glare from any other individual and making Hinata put her hand over her mouth shyly.

Naruto was still around ten to fifteen feet ahead of Sasuke when he decided to stop to wait for Sasuke to catch up.

"Sasuke, have you felt a presence following us for some time?"

"I don't think so, nothing beyond someone running too close before retreating. Why?" Sasuke inquired.

"I've felt a rather large force following us for some time now, it's always out of reach, though, so I don't know where there are or any specific details," Naruto said as he looked around warily. "Sakura needs to be moved to safety if it attacks, got it? I'll delay them until you get her away then I want you to come back and help."

"Why am I the one being protected like a child?" Sakura complained.

"Sorry, Sakura, but we need to have you off of our minds if they decide to attack, Sasuke and I may be able to delay them long enough for someone of higher power to intervene," Naruto explained. "This person, they feel stronger than Zabuza, right now Sasuke and I could maybe take on Zabuza by ourselves if he didn't use his mist. But this person, they're way out of our league."

"How very perceptive of you, you blond brat," a deceptively silky voice rang out around them followed immediately by a huge wave of killing intent. "But it won't save you."

Sakura fell to her knees almost immediately as her mind filled to her breaking point with dread and fear. Sasuke was kneeling while trying to regain control of his mind. Naruto stared down at the female figure, seemingly unphased by the force of will projected onto him.

"Impressive for such a young child to withstand my will without effect," the female figure moved menacingly closer.

Naruto merely pulled out a kunai and readied himself.

"So brave to face one such as I, but foolish!" the figure rushed him.

She threw a punch to his jaw as he stabbed through her hand at the last second and kicking her sternum. A poof was heard and a log fell to the ground.

"Damn you, brat! You'll pay for doing that!" she said with a deeper more masculine voice clutching her hand.

"Reveal yourself, no genin from grass or any village is this powerful," Naruto said in challenge.

"As a reward for damaging me and proving to me how much like your father you really are," she responded before tearing off her face. "I am Orochimaru."

Sasuke recovered to his feet and to reality just in time to hear that statement and feel the blood drain from his body.

_Orochimaru... _

"Shit," Naruto muttered as he pulled out a different kunai and slipped it into his sleeve. "And why are we disgraced by your presence today?"

"I have come," he began and pointed at Sasuke. "For him."

Sasuke looked up in surprise.

"You want his eyes," Naruto stated rather than inquired.

"How perceptive," Orochimaru granted. "That perverted fuck-up Jiraiya has taught you something at least."

"If Jiraiya was such a screw-up, how come his apprentice is now the most powerful ninja on the continent while yours never amounted to much?"

"Call it luck, the one thing he did have."

Naruto smirked as he felt the rage flowing off of the walking snake readying himself for an assault.

_Next to fear, anger is the most disabling_, Naruto scoffed inwardly.

"Does it anger you that the failure Jiraiya's apprentice's son is more powerful than your desired Uchiha?" Naruto taunted knowing the danger he invited hoping for the recklessness it invited. "Or is it that a twelve year-old has you figured out so quickly?"

Orochimaru sneered and charged at Naruto trying to impale the boy with his hand. Naruto sidestepped the thrust and slashed trying for his whole arm. Orochimaru pivoted and threw his elbow into Naruto's chest before the slash got far enough down to hit him. Recovering on a tree, Naruto launched himself at the Sannin to use a roundhouse kick to speed up his backhanded stab. Orochimaru simply back stepped from the its path before catching Naruto's wrist.

"You thought your words had actually gotten to me?" he said keeping Naruto's wrist locked in position. "Your feeble taunts held no gain on me, boy. You have a great journey to travel before you can best me."

Naruto grabbed the offending wrist while forming his chakra in his hand. Orochimaru scoffed at what he thought was a weak attempt to increase his strength with chakra until the chakra in his palm started to swirl and spin wildly.

"What?" was all he got before he had to throw the boy from his grip from the twisting pain in his arm.

Naruto flipped and landed on his feet some distance from Sasuke and Sakura. He slowly stood and tried again to form a Rasengan in his right hand.

_Every time the same fucking point before it..._

A ball of energy formed in his right palm.

"Finally!" he yelled before charging at Orochimaru's head with it.

A fist met his jaw that puffed out of existence. Feet approached from behind as he swirled and kicked the boy out of existence again. This time he was heard from above. His tongue whipped out and crushed the bunshin into smoke. He felt heat behind him and turned int time to see a giant fireball heading out to him. He leapt above it laughing. Hearing a cry from behind him he turned to see Naruto behind him with the rasengan in hand mere inches from his back.


	21. First Match

Orochimaru grabbed Naruto's wrist and spun, throwing him towards the earth. Surprise filled his brain when he felt his ankle be tugged towards the ground. Orochimaru found himself hurtling towards the earth through a fireball. Gritting his teeth, he threw his arms up in a cross to try and minimize the damage done by the fire.

Sasuke smirked as his trap went off without a hitch. Naruto was not about to be fooled and he kept his internal motor running. Once the fire and smoke had cleared, all that remained was a broken and shattered clay replica of Orochimaru.

"Shit," Naruto cried as he scoured the surrounding woods looking for any hint or trace of the snake bastard.

"You brats are clever," He said in a tree branch not far from their position. "But our time is almost up."

Dropping from his branch onto the ground he calmly strolled towards them. A clone of Naruto burst from the ground to have his face kicked in the second it came forth. Naruto created a few more clones with a curse and charged at Orochimaru. His clones were quickly and effortlessly dispatched while he was knocked out into the forest. Sasuke hurtled himself in a futile attack on the Sannin only to be subdued in less than three seconds.

"Pathetic," Orochimaru smiled wide. "But with this you will come to me for strength."

Orochimaru extended his neck and bit into the young Uchiha's neck evicting a scream from those small, pressured lungs. A kunai came flying from the woods and directly at Orochimaru's body. The pale man dropped the screaming Uchiha and dove backwards and stormed from the area. Yondaime appeared standing atop his trademark kunai.

"Naruto?" he questioned before he saw the writhing Uchiha and an unconscious Haruno. He dove over to Sakura to check on her, before speeding to Sasuke who needed his help much more.

"Hold still dammit!" he griped as he pinned Sasuke's shoulders down as the boy passed out from the pain. "Well, not quite what I meant."

He inspected the boy for any injuries needing treatment before he noticed the black seal on his neck.

"Him?" he inquired to no one while receiving an answer from his son.

"Yeah, the snake bastard," Naruto said as he wobbled out of the woods clutching his right forearm.

"Son! I-If I had known-Why was he-What happened?" Minato stumbled all over himself.

"He was here for Sasuke, don't worry about me, dad. He attacked us to get Sasuke, we fought him for as long as we could. I could have thrown it earlier but I didn't really want to draw too much attention or be disqualified."

"Son, if anyone of _his_ level ever attacks you do not hesitate to call on me. How did you manage to stave him off at all?"

"He wasn't going all out from the start, he was toying with us for the majority of it. Sasuke was fighting to overcome his recurring fear, Sakura passed straight out from it. I did manage to pull of a complete rasengan."

"For as long as you've been practicing it and our clutch nature, I'm not that surprised. What does worry me though, is this seal. I've heard a little of this seal and I need to know more. It needs to come off, and soon. Continue to the center. I'm going to rip Anko and ANBU new ones after this is over," Minato picked up Sasuke and Sakura under his arms and guided his son to a place near to the center tower.

"Isn't this considered cheating?" Naruto complained as he wrenched and reset both bones in his forearm hissing in pain.

"You were attacked by an S-class missing nin who is a kill-on-sight target and survived with minimal injuries, when everyone hears that, they'll either be afraid of you or cut you some slack," was the calm reply.

Naruto sighed and followed his father to the tower.

Naruto had been waiting for a few hours staring at Sasuke's unconscious form. He still had another three days of leisure before the end of the exam but waiting always killed him. Sasuke had not moved since he was sealed and Minato could not remove the seal without Sasuke being conscious. Sakura had left to find some food and drink about ten minutes prior but to Naruto it felt like she had been gone for the better part of an hour. When she did return all she had was water and cheap looking onigiri.

"Here," Sakura said as she tossed him one of the ten she had grabbed.

"This looks like crap," Naruto complained as he stared at the thing in his hand.

"Either eat it or don't, it was all that was left."

Naruto contemplated going out and getting some fish from the nearby stream but did not want to jeopardize his candidacy any farther. He ate the one in his hand then grabbed three more from the pile near Sakura and began to juggle them.

"Playing with your food, Naruto?" Sakura said with a mild giggle.

"Always the clown," Sasuke ground out as he pulled himself up.

"Finally joined the living, eh?" was the blonde's retort. "We've been in this tower for about a day waiting on you to live, in fact, Sakura's taken to praying to every third evil god she can find for your return."

"Liar!" Sakura yelled as she smacked Naruto over his head.

"Ouch," Naruto mocked. "Anyway, we've been waiting to open our scroll until you awoke."

Setting their scrolls down unceremoniously, Naruto and Sasuke opened them in unison and tossed them onto the ground once the recognized what they were.

"Summoning," Sakura started.

A loud pop was heard and smoke filled the area as Iruka appeared in front of them.

"Hey," Iruka greeted.

"Iruka-sensei?" they questioned at once.

"Yes, it is I, the great Iruka," he said in false haughtiness.

The children smiled and chuckled at his antics be fore asking.

"Why did our scrolls summon you?"

"I specifically requested you three. You have been my favorite students of all my years of teaching. I wanted to personally congratulate you on making it this far. Now, are there any questions you have for me? Anything, I'm supposed to explain the poem at the entrance to you but with you three I'm assuming you already got it."

"Without wisdom our strength is worthless, and conversely, our wisdom is too weak without strength," Naruto said softly.

"Right, you three, good luck. I know you'll all do well. Enjoy the brief reprieve, ja ne," Iruka said as he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

In about two days, the teams that had made it to the tower were gathered into a larger room with a balcony of sorts going along its inner walls. The statue in the back was picture perfect from the academy textbooks of the ram seal. Several of the gathered genin wondered which came first that picture or this statue. Minato cleared his throat to get their attentions.

"Welcome and congratulations on making it thus far," he began. "As so many of you noticed, this forest was a very real analogy for a war zone. Your team skills were tested and only you, a third of what went in, have come out. I thank you, on behalf of Konohagakure no Sato, for enduring this as your struggles prevent much larger events. These exams are a substitute for large scale warfare between the Nations of Ninja, your strife, while large for you, is small for what could be, for what has been. So again, I thank you.

"But, on to matters pertaining strictly to you gathered few, because of how many of you made it through both alive and successful, preliminaries are in order. These will be one-on-one fights, to test you individually as a reflection of earlier where you were tested as a team. So if you would, proceed to the balcony and wait until your name appears on the screen."

Most of the gathered genin had no idea that the chunin exams were to represent war between nations, they thought it was just a test to weed out the unworthy for promotion.

The first two names up were Sasuke Uchiha and Yoroi Akado. Sasuke, initially proud of his hand-to-hand skills, rushed Yoroi with a straight series of punches and kicks. Yoroi simply smirked under his black mask and tripped Sasuke, then grabbed his throat and chest to suck away his chakra. The surprised Uchiha then ripped himself from Yoroi's grip and dove away.

_I can't use my own chakra for jutsu or my sharingan or that stupid seal will act up and he can drain me of it by a simple touch_. Sasuke's mind raced as he dodged and avoided Yoroi's seeking, blue hands.

"You're quite fast, kid. But exactly how long can you keep it up?" Akado's jeer came.

Sasuke did not bother to reply, instead he focused himself on finding a way out of this mess. He pulled out a pair of kunai and rushed Yoroi.

Thinking that Sasuke was just giving up and trying to die, Yoroi failed to notice the flickering color of Sasuke's eyes.

_If I do it quick enough I can get the benefits but the seal can't react to my chakra on time_, he noticed as his experiment succeeded.

Turning his sharingan on and off until he was within striking range where it stayed on, Sasuke then twisted and turned out of the way of Yoroi's attacks and slashing at the larger, stronger boys arms with his kunai. After earning a few scratches and minor gouges on the larger, slower opponent, Sasuke's use of the sharingan caught up to him. The seal flared up across his whole upper arm and neck.

_Shit! Not now! w_as the thought that rang through everyone's mind at that exact moment. Everyone's except yoroi's. He grabbed Sasuke by that shoulder and picked him up. His hand recoiled after only a few seconds, his whole arm was burning and his hand was completely numb. Sasuke, after the rather large amount of tainted chakra was removed from his body, was able to quickly force down the seal based on his willpower. Recovered his feet, he slashed the front of both or Yoroi's thighs and swirled behind the now kneeling teen putting his blades to the teens jugulars.

"Yield," Sasuke commanded.

Unable to nod, Yoroi raised his good arm and mumbled to the proctor.

"I forfeit," was his weak response.

"Winner: Uchiha Sasuke."


	22. Family Matters

Naruto had watched with apprehension as Sasuke had fought. He knew Sasuke's strengths as well as the Uchiha did and seeing Yoroi's strengths were in the same area but much better than the duck-headed boy's. It had actually taken him by surprise when Sasuke won, he had expected the seal to completely hinder the Uchiha thus making it a more one-sided fight. Though his pride in his teammate was clear as day upon his face. The tired Uchiha walked by his teammate along the balcony.

"Great job," Naruto said extending his balled up fist.

"Thanks, but shouldn't you have expected that?" Sasuke replied hitting his knuckles to Naruto's.

"Nah, I expected that seal to make you completely useless," Naruto replied sarcastically.

"Che, I need it off, though," Sasuke said unconsciously raising his hand to his neck. "This thing unbalances me, sucking away my chakra, flaring up with pain, I need it gone and off of my mind forever."

"Good," Kakashi chimed in as he planted his hand on the dark haired boy's neck. "We should get on that right away."

"Right now?" Sasuke asked.

"Of course now, the longer it sits, the deeper it grows," he said pulling the boy along.

Naruto watched his friend and teammate go. It hadn't hit him until then that Sakura was oddly quiet throughout the whole conversation.

"Speaking of, where is she?" he mumbled to himself as he looked around.

It did not take him long before he saw her in the ring fighting Ino. The two girls seemed adamant to beat each other. Although, given their lack of skill and jutsu repertoire, it was a pretty boring fight for Naruto to watch. He kept his eyes trained on Sakura watching for her to pull off something that would both awe and surprise the crowd. He finally got a little bit of that moment when Sakura overpowered Ino's Shintenshin and then used the moment of surprise and Ino's defenseless state to smack her across the jaw with her sloppy but-oh-so-powerful punches. Sakura was barely able to look at her unconscious friend before she too passed out. Naruto smiled and jumped down to the arena to scoop up his teammate and carry her back to rest against the wall of the balcony.

Hayate coughed loud enough to get everyone's attention.

"The last match will be considered a draw on the grounds that both combatants were unconscious at the end of the battle," he said weakly with intermittent coughs throughout.

"bullshit!" Naruto yelled as he flung himself to the railing. "No one could doubt that Sakura passed out after Ino did!"

"True, but moments like that in the real world would lead to her being captured or killed before she regained consciousness. That is why she is disqualified," Hayate clarified in his sickly voice.

Naruto grumbled and pulled back to the wall where he sat cross-legged and fumed. While he agreed that would have happened she still beat her opponent. But there are no rewards for victories that close.

Minato's attention was anywhere but the fights before him. He trusted Hayate's judgment and some of the recently exposed events required his attention a little more than these minuscule fights among children. Would to god that they were the biggest of his current worries. But with the appearance of Orochimaru and the branding of the Uchiha were more pressing things than these few children passing or failing. He could unseal Sasuke, but he needed the time to do it. It took an entire day of his time to do it and getting any child to do that was hard enough, let alone one as haughty as Sasuke Uchiha. As well, he knew he could utterly decimate Orochimaru, the problem was: Orochimaru was not in plain sight and asking to get his butt handed to him. All-in-all, he had his work cut-out.

"Hyuuga Hinata and Hyuuga Neji. Please report to the arena."

Neji pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning on and moved to the ring. Hinata was much more cautious and nervous looking as she trudged her way to the arena. So deep in her mind was she that she didn't even notice that she passed Naruto on her way until he grabbed her hand.

"Naruto-kun...." she muttered before she could even think of what she was saying.

"Hinata-chan, you can take him, just know that. I know you can take him. Just believe it yourself and do it. Don't let anything he says get to you, it's only scare tactics," he said softly and sincerely holding her wrist and staring deeply into her pale lavender eyes.

Hinata could only nod as he released her wrist.

"Would you mind letting the clan disgrace come down here to face her fated defeat?" Neji called from the center of the arena with arms folded.

"Why don't you shut the fuck up you stuck up prick?!?" Naruto yelled once again flinging himself to the railing and leaning over as far as he could. "She'll get there soon enough to wipe the floor with your ass!"

Hinata blushed at Naruto's colorful language and hurried along her way to the floor to face her feared cousin.

"Are you ready to die at my hands, oh great heiress?" Neji taunted.

Hinata gave no response, only looking to the ground in front of her and waiting for the go-ahead.

"Fine. Die without any words defending your honor. Know that it was a branded and supposedly weaker clansman who held your life in his hands," he said activating his Byakugan and slipping into the familial stance.

"Byakugan," was the first thing Hinata had said since Naruto spoke to her as she, too, slipped into the clan's famous stance.

"Fighters ready? Begin!" Hayate proclaimed as he moved himself from in between them.

"Neji and Hinata rushed forward stopping in the center for their clash. Their blows all went unfulfilled. Neither landed a blow on the other for the eternity of a minute. Their hands would be blocked and deflected as blue wisps of chakra were seen flaring from their fingertips. The famous white-on-white eyes glared each other down, hate from one, sadness and determination from the other. No one seemed to notice that Hinata's moves were becoming faster and more powerful except Neji.

"Come on, come on. Hit him!" Naruto finished yelling and cheering for Hinata. "Knock his prideful head into next year!"

Hinata suddenly moved faster and scored two very light hits on Neji's middle.

"not deep enough," Naruto said quiet enough for Hinata not to hear.

"Not true," Maito Gai offered. "The Hyuuga fighting style is much different than any other style. Where most styles need force to deliver crushing blows and inflict physical damage on the enemy with powerful impacts, the Hyuuga need only the slightest touch. They use their eyes and chakra to damage the target. They only need a glancing touch to inflict amazing damage on their enemies."

"Well then, KEEP GOING, HINATA!" he yelled his encouragement.

Hinata smiled as she continued to score blows all over Neji. When she seemed to be about to deliver a devastating blow to his chest, Neji smirked.

"Kaiten!" he yelled as his body suddenly whirled in a circle and his chakra extended from his body in a tight sphere.

Hinata's small frame was sent across the arena and into a rolling lump. As she staggered to her feet, Neji was calling out insults and jeers.

"Is this all the Main House can produce as its heir? A weak little girl who can't even beat a branch house bondsman? You really are pathetic, Hinata," he growled her name like a dirty word. "None of your blows have had even the slightest effect. Do you want to die here?"

"No, I. Do. Not," Hinata said as she rose clutching her ribs. "I will not die today. I am truly sorry for what happened, Neji. And I truly pity you for your inability to see the truth. Please, just fight me and take out all of your frustrations out on me today."

Naruto watched as he grew even more angry with the older boy. He thought he knew everything. There was always more than meets the eye, even a Hyuuga's Byakugan. What he saw next would anger him right up to his breaking point.

"I hate you all, main house bastards. You problem to love us like family but treat us like slaves."

He slipped back into his stance as Hinata did hers.

"I'm sorry," Hinata said quietly.

"i don't wanna hear it!"

he charged and gave her a powerful flurry of attacks that Hinata was barely able to block any of. She ended up on the ground kneeling in pain.

"You keep saying you're sorry! But what have you done to help me throughout these years?!?" he yelled at her crumpled form.

Hinata stood again slowly.

"I tried-"

"Shut up," he said softly. "Now die, for you are within range of my divination."

He struck faster than Hinata could even see.

"Rekujuuyonshou!" he called out as he systematically struck Hinata repeatedly all over her body.

Once he had finished, all of Hinata's tenketsu were closed. And she fell to her stomach, her mouth trickling blood at both ends.

"Now you see the folly of holding us back," Neji said as he stared down at her before turning his back and walking a few meters away. When the proctor did not call the match, he glanced over and called Hayate out on it. The response was a simple finger point.

"I do not know exactly why you hate me so," Hinata said as she staggered and stood with trembling legs clutching her ribs even harder than before. "But I forgive you, for everything. And I hope you can forgive me some day."

"I didn't ask for your forgiveness!" he yelled as he charged and aimed a strike at her heart. Hinata did not even try to move, she only stood there as best she could and stared deep into Neji's soul.

Suddenly, Neji was stopped and a back obscured her view of him.

Hayate stood at Neji's front the Kakashi and Kurenai on either side of him and Gai at his back. Neji did not looked surprised and only relaxed his arms and torso, cuing his restraints of his compliance. They released him as Hinata was rushed on a stretcher to the medical ward. Naruto had his back to Neji. Naruto half turned to Neji, bent down and grabbed a patch of earth that was dripping with her blood and held his dripping fist toward Neji.

"I will make you pay for that. Every, last, hateful, motion. You will feel it. Tenfold."

"Fate will decide."

Neji continued to the balcony without paying Naruto any attention. Naruto continued up to the balcony after him. His eyes burning into the black-haired nemesis.

Naruto kept fuming not at all watching the fight between Tenten and Temari choosing to instead glare at Neji every few seconds before returning to the ground in front of him, though from the sounds of things Tenten was getting her ass kicked. When the winner was called he did not so much as blink in surprise. He did, however, jolt upright when he heard his name being called.

"What?" was his brilliant and annoyed response.

"Your name has been announced. Get down there and show us the luminosity of your burning fires of youth!" Gai answered for him.

Naruto hurried down to the arena as fast as he could not even bothering to check who he was fighting.

"About time you blonde idiot," Kiba jeered. "Now I get to show that grades aren't everything."

Naruto said nothing and only viewed the boy in front of him as a small vent for his increasing anger.

"What? No smart-ass response this time?" Kiba continued in his all-too-juvenile taunting.

"Can we get this over with?" Naruto muttered darkly staring hard at Hayate.

"Begin."

Kiba charged with Akamaru tailing him, growling. Naruto stood his ground still facing Hayate, only his eyes following Kiba. When Kiba slashed high and down at Naruto, fully expecting Naruto to be too flat-footed to respond, he did not expect what happened. Naruto's hand to come up and catch his wrist, hard.

"Wha-" was all he got out for all of his surprise. A hard fist rapping against his mouth cut him short as well as sent him back a few meters.

"Transform, Kiba. Otherwise I'll just tear you apart right now," Naruto threatened lowly.

Everyone was caught off guard by his venom, including Minato.

_Interesting. He seems upset and is willing to take it out on this poor boy. Good luck, Kiba._

"Fine, if you want to end this so soon. Akamaru!" Kiba called as he flung a soldier pill to his dog as the canine leapt onto his master's back then both males transformed into what seemed like a halfway marker between the two. The two separated and prepared to leap and spin claws forward. Only landing was as far as they got. A Naruto clone sprang from the ground in front of each to deliver nasty uppercuts to each of their jaws. Both Kibas exploded into clouds of dust, one revealing the real boy with a dislocated jaw and the other revealing a poor dog with a broken jaw. Both were unconscious.

"Match over. Winner, Namikaze Naruto."


	23. Righteous Burning

Naruto did not head up to the balcony like most combatants had done. He turned to Gai and yelled instead.

"Lemme know the rest of the results. I need to check on Hinata," he turned and ran out of the arena and toward the medical ward.

Gai smiled and nodded even though the boy's head was turned before he could even respond.

The next fight was starting before Naruto even made it out of the room. He ran down halls searching for any trace of where they had taken Hinata. After two times turning back, he found a small trail to follow: droplets of blood. The very blood he had sworn upon to bring vengeance upon the head of one Hyuuga Neji for his betrayals to his blood and family.

The droplets were about forty feet apart which was good because she was not bleeding but also bad because he could not follow it well and ended up turning back a few more times to take a different route.

_How can it be this damn hard to find the medical areas?_ He questioned himself as he rounded another corner.

The trail had one final smeared droplet that led under a door. There was a light on the outside of the door with a needle painted on it.

"Dammit, I guess I'll wait," he muttered as he plopped himself onto the floor next to the door. This time was beneficial as his mind was never still and his thoughts always wandering.

_Why am I following her? Sure, I have spoken with her numerous times but why follow her and why get involved in her political-or is it familial? Ah whatever, political issues with her cousin?_

He sat and pondered over this for a time. His brow furrowed and his inner gerbil sprinting he came upon more questions instead of answers.

_Could I love her? But I barely know her.__ Sure, she supposedly has a crush on me but I doubt it's true. She is really cute, shy, but cute._

_**Not to mention her rather large assets you noticed-**_

_No, no. Stop that right now. While that is true I am not a pervert like you. I do not, will not act on them. I'm not you._

_**I was only saying, you have that option. As well, I'm sure she'd oblige for her worshipped crush.**_

_Whatever, perverted fox._

Naruto continued in his thoughts and so deep into them that he barely noticed the nurse trying to get his attention. After a few minutes she reached out at touched his shoulder, shocking him back into reality.

"Are you waiting to see her?"

He nodded his dumb response. (A/N dumb as in mute not stupid.)

she ushered him into the room urging him to be quiet as Hinata was still resting and only recently stabilized. Naruto looked at her soft form gently from her head down to her still sandal-born toes.

"How can such a harmful technique be used on such a gentle and frail girl? By family no less!" Naruto said managing to keep his volume down but not his disdain and newfound anger. "I hope to see him in the finals. I'll show him what he has wrought."

The nurse was quiet surprised to hear such passion, honor and vocabulary from such a small boy.

Naruto stood there staring a hole into the wall until something small and soft touched his hand. Looking down he saw that it was Hinata's fingertips touching the back of his hand.

"You should-ah!- not look like that, Naruto-kun," she said as soft as a feather falling through the air.

"Hinata, don't speak. Rest, I'll punish Neji for you," he said as he gripped her small and frail-to-the-touch hand kneeling.

"No, Naruto-ah!-kun. Do not hate or-" she gasped and shuddered in pain.

"Hinata..."

"Punish him. Show him what he should be."

"Why-" Naruto began but Hinata was already unconscious if her limp hand were any evidence.

Naruto placed her hand at her side and stood turning to the door.

"I understand."

he calmly walked out and back to the arena a new purpose written on his heart.

As he walked into the arena, Kiba's loud and utterly grating howl call him out.

"Naruto! Get down here! I don't wanna win by disqualification!"

Naruto wordlessly jumped down to the center of the arena, a clear and terrifying purpose on his face: he would not lose.

"Kiba, I apologize in advance for the sheer decimation you will face at my hands."

"Cocky as ever, huh? Fine by me. Come get your ass handed to you by the fangs of the Inuzuka!"

"Fighters ready?" Hayate's voice interrupted them. "Fight!"

Kiba was first to charge as per usuam. What was not usual was that he was moving slower than he could. Once within striking range of Naruto, who had not moved an inch, he ducked down and brought both hands up to strike Naruto's chin. Naruto whipped his head back to avoid Kiba's strike by fractions of a centimeter and brought his right foot straight up under Kiba's jaw. The canine mimicking boy was sent tumbling back to his original position.

"If you expect victory from this fight Kiba, you must come at me harder than that. I have faced muskrats more vicious than that pitiful display."

Kiba hopped up and rubbed his extremely sore jaw, then tossed a red pill to Akamaru.

"Fine then," he said smiling and activated his familial jutsu.

Two feral Kiba's dove headlong for Naruto, spinning wildly and creating a vortex of chakra enhanced claws. Naruto Flipped to his shoulders to plant both heels into the jaw of the first vortex, sending it backwards and across the arena. The second vortex slowed a half a beat, just enough for Naruto to catch both spinning wrists and spin him around his feet before whipping him up and slamming his back into the ground. Hard.

Naruto backed himself a few feet from Kiba's prone form to watch both opponents. The first one to rise was the small, red dog which he first downed. It ran headlong for Naruto's knees with open jaws. Naruto simply stooped and chopped the dog on the back of his neck away and unintentionally into Hayate who hastily caught and dropped the dog, dogs were one of the few things that truly made him sick.

Kiba slowly and unsteadily got to his feet to catch his breath.

"You jerk!"

"This is live combat, Kiba!" Naruto said as he marched towards his opponent. "You must forget that I am your comrade in the Leaf and fight me!"

Naruto started a vicious physical onslaught of fists. First high then low the high three times and low again. His balled fists and sometimes heels of his hands were seemingly randomly aimed but always on target and always hard. Kiba could barely see some of them and the few he could see he could barely lessen the strikes. Then Naruto gave him an opening: an extremely slow and lengthened uppercut. Kiba waited and dodged the punch then heaven opened for him: Naruto had turned himself around with his punch. Kiba tried to rake his claws along Naruto's back but the foot the was suddenly planted into his gut stopped everything. His world was black before he even broke contact with Naruto's offending heel. Kiba tumbled backwards for two meters like a rag doll before rolling on his side to rest face down.

"Winner: undoubtedly Namikaze Naruto!" Hayate yelled out.

Author's Notes:

First off, thanks be to Godsmack for helping with the Naruto-Kiba fight. The pure rage that Naruto was feeling and using Kiba to help vent, assisted by the anger from a few of their songs.

Second, fights are much easier to write for someone who practices in martial arts like myself than the emotional and social development. Hence, the super long update time.

Also, thank you to all of you who actually read my crap writing. I like my story, but sometimes I find myself wishing that someone else was writing it. So that I could read it and not know what's coming. Alas, laziness.


End file.
